McMillan's Magazine 1867-12: Vol 17 Iss 98

MACMILLAN’S MAGAZINE.

DECEMBER, 1867.

REALMAH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “ FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.”

CHAPTER IV.

Dr. Jonnson used to say, that a con-
cern for public affairs never took away
any man’s appetite for dinner. He was
certainly wrong, for poor Mr. Milverton
has been in the most depressed state
lately ; and I think his dinners have
been seriously affected by the impending
war in Europe.

When next we met, it happened to
be a wet day ; and we agreed that we
would have our reading in the library.
All about the library were strewed maps
of the probable seat of war, showing
what had_been Mr. Milverton’s recent
objects of study. Just after we had
met, Mr. Milverton rushed into the
house, and begged us all to come into
the garden to see something. We all
came at once. He seldom notices
natural phenomena; or, if he does
notice them, he does not talk about
them, which made us come more readily.
He brought us in a minute or two to a
spot where there was a pitched. battle
going on between an army of red and
an army of black ants. What surprised
me was this: I had always understood,
from books on natural history, that the
red ants were much stronger than the
black ants, but in this case the little
black fellows fought admirably ; and,

No, 98.—vou, xvi.

while we remained, I could not foresee
on which side the victory would be.

We re-entered the house, and went
into the library, where the ladies joined
us.

Ellesmere. There is one advantage of a
wet day—namely, that we do not have our
meetings in that stupid summer-house.
There one sits up, very uncomfortably, on a
hard bourd, leaning against some out-jutting
piece of rustic abomination, which is meant
to be very picturesque, and which certainly
does possess that element of the picturesque
which consists in ruin and decay. The
whole thing partakes of the nature of a pic-
nic; and pic-nics are my abhorrence. A
meal is too serious a thing to be treated in
that light manner.

Lady Ellesmere. What a hard, sensual
man you are !
El e. Oh, yes! women like these

foolish things, it gives them an opportunity
for fuss and bustle ; and, after all, they are
sure to forget the salt, or the vinegar, or
something or other which is an essential
element to human happiness during dinner-
time.

Mauleverer. I am quite of Sir John’s
opinion. No sensible man, after he has
attained the age of twenty-two—if he is not
in love—cares about pic-nics.

Ellesmere. You look very miserable,
Milverton. I know what is worrying you.
What is the good of fretting about these
turbulent and foolish people? If they will
go to war, they must ; and I suppose it is
necessary, for some good end or other, that
they should do so.

H

96 Realmah.

Milverton. I cannot get over it. War
horrifies me. On all sides, loss, destruction,
waste, turmoil, cruelty, sickness, horses
slain, olive-trees cut down, bridges blown
up, roads obliterated.

Ellesmere. Don’t go on. We know all
that. It needs no ghost to tell us that.

Milverton. Yes: but there is something
you do not know. There is not only the
active mischief of war, but all the prepara-
tion for war, which is perhaps the greater
evil, in the long run, of the two. Did it
ever enter into your mind to cansider what
an unproductive creature a soldier is, and
what an immense difference it makes to the
welfare of the human race, whether you
have all these stalwart men employed in
producing, or in merely consuming and
destroying ?

Ellesmere. Yes: now you talk like a
sound political economist and sensible man.

Milverton. Then, you know, it does
thoroughly dishearten one to find that
Christianity, during all these years, has been
able to do so little towards the prevention
of war. Nobody seems to see the beauty
of renunciation. Nobody seems to see the
merit of being content to be second or third
instead of first in the great game of life. But
I am unjust: private persons do some-
times see this beauty and this merit. I do
believe that the first impulses of jealousy,
of revenge, and of injustice, are constantly
restrained by Christianity in the breasts of
private individuals ; but in nations never.
Honour! glory ! rights! claims! balance of
power! these are the words which still
dominate nations. Statesmen are like
lawyers, who often give their clients advice
which is harsh and self-seeking, telling them
never to give up their rights and their
claims—advice which, if the case were their
own, they would not give themselves—being
more generous, as they think it right to be,
for themselves, than for their clients.

Ellesmere. Yes: we lawyers are very
good people: it is our clients who make us
wicked, whenever we are wicked ; which is
very rarely.

Mauleverer. Man is meant to be miser-
able, and he always will be.

Ellesmere. 1 do not see that. Paley’s
argument is better than yours; but people
who are fond of fishing are always wiser
than other men. As Paley justly says,
“Teeth were made to eat with, and not
to ache.” If we injudiciously contrive
to make our teeth ache, it is our own
fault; and the same thing applies to all
our conduct. I have just as good a right
to say that men were meant to be happy, as
that men were meant to be miserable, Mr.

Mauleverer. But do not let us interrupt
Milverton : he will not be endurable until
he has had his full moan over the present
state of European affairs ; which, however,
are enough to make anybody moan.

Milverton. There is one point connected
with this matter that I often blame myself
for not having spoken about. It is the use
that we Britishers make of our capital. How
we send it out to the most distant regions,
often to be used against ourselves, and
indeed against the dearest and best interests
of mankind, I think that upon this subject
—to speak without arrogance—I am really
an authority. Iwas the last surviving com-
missioner of foreign claims,—that means, of
the claims of British subjects against foreign
nations for injuries done in the wars that
were closed by Waterloo. It may appear
strange to you that I should ever have held
such an office, for I am not yet, I trust, a
very aged individual ; but there were several
commissions before I was appointed, and
the commissioners died out, leaving us the
last set to wind up the affairs. I had, of
course, to look into all the old papers ; and I
found that there was no form of confiscation
which had not been adopted with regard to
British property. For instance, a foreign
merchant owed a British merchant money :
in his books it was a book-debt. The
Government of the country said, “ Pay us
that debt which, according to your books,
you owe the Englishman, and we will give
you a receipt, so that you cannot be molested
for the debt in any of our courts.”

Well, then I will pursue the subject
further. Is it not lamentable that, with the
tields of England not half tilled, with the
poor people of England not half housed,
with every branch of industry that England
possesses requiring capital, we should ever
send our money out to be invested in Congo
Fives or Timbuctoo Seven per Cents., or
whatever other tempting but foolish invest-
ment is offered to us by some distant country
or colony? I believe [ should have fulfilled
my part in the world, if I had only persuaded
my fellow-conntrymen never to invest in
anything which they cannot go and see, and
respecting which their own laws give them
a remedy, if any wrong is done them. I
know it is of no use attempting by any
legislative measures to prevent the efflux of
capital. It is only to be done by persua-
sion ; but, really, if men would only look to
their own interests, they would be very shy
of foreign investments. Now, I would ask
the question, Has any man ever invested,
twenty or thirty years ago, in land on
British soil, and has not that investment
increased at least forty per cent. in value ?

Realmah.

However, I have said my say upon this
subject, and you may believe me, or not ;
but I am quite sure that the increased
interest never balances the increased danger
which is to be found in making foreign
investments.

Sir Arthur. To return to the main ques-
tion of war, you cannot say, Milverton, that
we have not gained a great deal of wisdom
upon this point—that we are not wiser than
other nations as regards it—for we have
come to the conclusion that extension of
territory is nearly always bought at too high
a price.

Ellesmere. This has arisen from our
insular position. You must not give us any
great credit for being wiser than any other
nation.

Milverton. There you are unjust. I
would not exactly say that we are wiser
than other nations; but I do honestly think
that we are more conscientious. There is no
doubt we are a very warlike nation, and
that the great bulk of every people delight
in war: but we have come to the conclu-
sion that it is a very dangerous thing for
our future welfare—I mean not temporal,
but eternal welfare—to indulge in any war
that is not a war of defence or a war of pro-
tection to some oppressed people. I think
that the religious movement which com-
menced in the latter part of the last
century and the beginning of this—of which
Wilberforce may be chosen as a repre-
sentative—had a great effect upon the
minds of the British people. It cancelled
slavery ; it improved our criminal code ; it
made all men, even statesmen, obliged to
refer their conduct to the highest religious
principles ; and, you may depend upon it, it
has proved a great check upon our naturally
warlike instincts. This is what I think
foreign nations do not understand, when
they contemplate our sedulous observance
of neutrality. They think it is shopkeeping
which restrains us, whereas it is a fear of
violating the highest moral and religious
principles. I may be mistaken; but I
sincerely believe what I say.

Only let some foreign nation attack us,
and see what Berserkers we should become.
I do not believe that the fighting element
has gone out of us, but only that we are
terribly afraid of fighting, except upon
some thoroughly good cause—some cause
which we believe would be approved of
in heaven, as well as upon earth.

Nir Arthur. I am entirely in accordance
with Mr. Milverton.

Mauleverer. I am not. Did you ever
know the bulk of any nation ruled by any
great, or humane, or religious principle ?

97

Ellesmere. 1 think you all go too far in
your respective theories. I think that,
partly from a view of their interests, partly
perhaps from religious principles, partly
perhaps from their just contempt of the
frivolous causes which often provoke war,
the British people have come to a con-
clusion against it ; but I am not inclined
to give all the weight that Milverton does
to Wilberforce, and the Wilberforcians of
the last generation.

Milverton. At any rate, Ellesmere, you
perceive the great change that has taken
place in the minds of the British people
about war.

Ellesmere. Well, there isa great change
in the French people ; and to whom is this
due?

Sir Arthur. The French people have re-
ceived great lessons in political wisdom.
Count Darn, I believe, told them that he had
made calculations, by which it appeared that
the height of men in France had been lowered
one inch and a half, or two inches, by the
wars of the first Napoleon. You see how
this happens; the taller men are perpetually
chosen for war, and are carried off to be
slaughtered before they have produced any
progeny.

Ellesmere. And you think that the
arguments to be derived from such facts
as these have any weight against “national
glory, national honour, and rectification of
frontiers ?”

Milverton. I do. Besides, the French
are the most industrious people in Europe,
and they love to see the fruits of their °
industry. I may be sanguine, but I be-
lieve that the French are rapidly entering
upon the same platform as ourselves ; and
that, if our statesmen manage well, we might
yet have them nearly always on our side
for the maintenance of the peace of Europe.

Ellesmere. Well, we have had enough of
foreign politics : let us go to the men who,
untold years ugo, dwelt upon the Swiss
lakes. I will bet anything Milverton
makes them talk and think as if they were
profound political economists of the present
day ; and if Realmah does not talk to these
fishy men much as Milverton would talk
to us, my name is not John Ellesmere.

Milverton. I can only tell you what I
know to have occurred. I may use modern
terms, and sometimes modern modes of
thought in speaking of the lake-men ; but
what I know is, that I shall give a most
true account of the thoughts and doings of
the great Realmah.

Hereupon the reading commenced,
and was as follows.
n 2

98 Realmah.

THE STORY OF REALMAH.
CHAP, III.
THE TWO WIVES.

Art the time when this story commenced,
Realmah had already received the two
wives who were bestowed upon a man
of his rank by the laws of the nation.

The cousin-wife, the Varnah, as she
was called, was a plain young woman,
possessing sundry good qualities as a
housewife. She was regular, punctual,
methodical, and a great lover of, posses-
sions, not from avarice, but from a
desire to have many things to furbish
up, and to put in their right places.
The heads of Realmah’s tribe had given
her to Realmah with a kindly wish to
compensate in some measure for his
infirmities. He would never be able
to acquire much property, they thought ;
but whatever he did acquire would be
taken care of, and made the most of,
by his Varnah.

The alphabet-wife (the Ainah) was
one of those girls whose personal appear-
ance it is so difficult to describe, because
there are no general terms which can
be applied to it. She was neither beau-
tiful, nor handsome, nor pretty; nor
was she even what is called interesting-
looking. In truth, her whole appear-
ance was at first sight rather insignificant,
and nobody would have turned to look
at her as she passed them. Yet she
was worth looking at, if looked at with
a loving attention. Her small features
were full of subtle mobility, and readily
expressed the swift change of her
thoughts. Her hair was a reddish
brown, not unbeautiful; her deep-set
eyes, of a dark blue colour, were really
very expressive when you came to look
into them; and there was an air of
great resolve about her well-formed
lips. She was one of those people in
whom dress and distinction of any kind
make such a difference. If she had
been a little princess, one could have
made something of her. But she never

was well dressed ; and, as to distinction
of any kind, she had none.

The poor Ainah had never been
taught those graceful movements which
were carefully cultivated from their
earliest youth by the girls of the higher
class of the Sheviri.

And then, again, her hands and feet
were by no means small.

I wish I could in honesty speak
more favourably of the personal appear-
ance of the Ainah; but, to tell the
truth, it was unmistakeably plebeian.
She had sprung from one of the lowest
tribes of the nation—namely, that
of the fishermen. After the manner
of her tribe, she pronounced some of
the commonest words quite wrongly.
Louvarah (house) she made into luffee :
darumid (people) into roomee: volata
(provisions) into vlatee ; with a hundred
other gross errors of language. Realmah
was well skilled in his language ; and
the poor Ainah never uttered a sentence
in which she did not sorely shock his
sensitive ears. Yet, in reality as Real-
mah was the most thoughtful man of
his nation, so his Ainah was the girl
of the largest mind and nature in that
town. This was totally unknown to
him; and he had received her as he
would have received any other chattel
assigned to him by the laws of his
country. It was not in his nature
to be unkind to any one ; but such an
idea as that of loving his Ainah never
entered his mind, and would have been
received by him from any one else with
a smile of derision.

Tt was on the morning succeeding the
night during which Realmah had uttered
the soliloquy mentioned in the first
chapter, that the young man entered
his abode, and began talking with his
two wives—not with a hope of gaining
any ideas from them, or with much care
for their sympathy, but from a natural
wish to talk out his own ideas to some-
body—to give them, as it were, shape
by utterance.

“ Have you seen the ambassador from
the Phelatahs?” said Realmah.

“ Yes,” replied the wives.

“ And what do you think of him ?”

“He is beautifully dressed,” said the
Varnah, “and his presents are of the

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Bw OO CeOWrewve Vv ef eeme Oo!

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Realmah. 99

first quality. He has given us a vase
with heads all round it, and serpents
crawling up it, which meet, and together
form the handles: it is quite a treasure.”

It may here be remarked that all the
nations of the lake excelled in pottery.
It was not that they understood the
art of burning; but individual thought
and skill were thrown into each article,
and the variety and strangeness of the
designs compensated in great measure
for the want of knowledge shown in
completing the processes of manufacture.

“ Yes, yes,” said Realmah, somewhat
peevishly, “the presents that will return
to the giver hereafter as spoil, may well
be handsome ; but what do you think
of the man himself? For my part,” he
exclaimed with vehemence, “I believe
him to be false as the hooded adder.”

“When did you get truth from any
of his nation?” replied the Varnah.
(This was the general opinion of the
Phelatahs entertained by the Sheviri,
and was the correct common-place for
the Varnah to utter.)

“Tdo not mind that,” replied Real-
mah; “what I want to know is,
whether the story which this man
brings us is a mere pretext or not. Is
our nation to be the slave, and not the
ally ?”

By the way, Realmah, in his lordly
indifference, had never told his wives
what was the pretext upon which the
ambassador had come.

“ And what do you think, Ainah ?”

**T noted him well,” she answered.
“He looks straight into people’s eyes,
because it is the habit of honest men to
do so, and he knows it is the way to
gain credit; but I could see that it
gave him pain, and that it was a great
effort.”

Realmah, who had been looking down
upon the ground, lost in meditation,
suddenly raised his eyes, and gazed with
astonishment at the Ainah.

“ And who told you to observe this ?”
he said.

“ My heart,” she answered.

“Pray do not say phonee, my good
Ainah.” (That was the word amongst
the fishermen for ‘ heart.’) “ Why turn

everything into that foolish ee? Cannot
you say phonata ?”

“ Phonata, then,” said the Ainah,
timidly, with the tears rising to her
eyes.

‘‘ Any one that has got eyes with any
power of insight, even the women can
see it,” muttered Realmah; “ but our
elders, though they have the wisdom
and experience of grey hairs, cannot. I
must, at all risks, foree my suspicions
upon them.”

“Do not go now,” said the Varnali.
“You must come and see my bridal
room, which the dear little Ainah”
(she really loved the Ainah, because the
girl was so useful and unselfish) “ has
helped me to decorate.”

Realmah, who, like most great men,
was essentially good-natured, consented
to follow the Varnah to the bridal room.
She led the way, expecting a burst of
applause from him. The Ainah fol-
lowed ; and as she followed, sighed.

There is no knowing how many
thousands of years have passed since
those three human beings walked into
that bridal room ; but, ancient as the
time was, that sigh which tells so much
about a wounded heart was still more
ancient, and had not been unknown
even in the primeval Paradise.

Realmah walked about the bridal
room, and did his best to appear pleased
with the clay vases, the various orna-
ments formed of feathers, the flint and
bronze weapons, and the woven hang-
ings ; but his mind was in the assembly
of his chiefs, composing a speech which
should be endured even from a young
man, which should rouse suspicion, and
compel a clear and decided course of
action.

Suddenly he exclaimed, “If this is
truth, then are the ways of falsehood
much maligned ; if this is policy, then
are the ways of children politic ; if this
is the prudence of great chieftains, then
are great chieftains little removed from
ordinary men; if this is statesmanship,
then are statesmen blind alike to the
history of the past, and to the just fore-
casting of the future.”

Saying which, Realmah made two pro-

100 Realmah.

found bows, one to his Varnah, and the
other to the Ainah (for that was high
courtesy according to the customs of his
nation), and rushed from the bridal
chamber into the open air. His wives
looked after him amazed. As the hang-
ings closed behind him, the Varnah
said, “ Poor Realmah ! we should live but
meanly if it depended on him to provide
for us. But let us look again over all
our presents.” The Varnal was very
skilful in obtaining presents, and had
laid all her relations under strict con-
tribution. With her father she was an
especial favourite. Ever since the death
of his last wife, she had made the old
chief very comfortable ; and it was with
the greatest reluctance, and only from a
strong sense of duty, that he had given
her up to Realmah. The wonderful
flint knives, and many of the bronze
ornaments that adorned the Varnah’s
bridal-room, had belonged to the old
chief; but, as the Varnah judiciously
observed, why could he not glory over
them as well in his daughter’s house
as in his own? And the old chief did
come frequently to his daughter’s house,
and was always kindly treated by the
Varnah, for she was not like one of
King Lear’s daughters, but loved her
father and her kindred. Only where
she was, the property must also be, that
it might be duly cared for, and kept in
order.

The Ainah sighed again, and she also
said “‘ Poor Realmah!” and only God
could know what depths of tenderness,
sympathy, appreciation, and hopelessness
were contained in those two words ; for
the Ainah was well aware that she was
but the slave of a great man—and
nothing more than the slave.

Meanwhile Realmah bent his steps
slowly and thoughtfully towards the
great council-chamber, where, under the
presidency of his uncle, the chief of the
East, the assembled chiefs and their
principal councillors were considering
what answer should be given to the
ambassador of the Phelatahs.

CHAP. IY.
THE COUNCIL,

Tue chiefs were assembled in a long low
room of great antiquity. It had beew
the council-room of the town ever since
it had been first raised upon the waters
by a few fugitives who, in earlier days,
had fled from the persecutions of those
warriors who possessed weapons of
bronze.

At the time that Realmah entered,
the chief of the East was addressing the
assembly. He was an old man, of great
authority amongst the people, and of
considerable natural sagacity ; but his
ideas were wont rather to travel in a
groove, and to take the form of melan-
choly forebodings.

Realmah bent himself to the ground.
The assembled chiefs looked at him with
a cold haughty stare which said more
plainly even than words could say:
* What, young man, is the need of your
presence here ¢”

Meanwhile the chief of the East, utterly
ignoring the interruption, although he
was Realmah’s uncle, thus continued his
speech. “I foresee the time—I say, I
distinctly foresee the time, when from
the constant irruption of these bar-
barians, life will become so difficult and
so precarious for us, we shall be so
hunted down by these new comers, that
instead of building on the waters, our
people will have to place their miserable
habitations on dryland. They will thus
become the prey of every passer-by.
No one will sleep in peace. No one
will feel secure, that in the morning he
and his family will rise to pay their
devotions to the sun. With this in-
security, will come an indifference to all
the arts of life; and the whole race will
degenerate into inferior animals.

**My voice is for war; my voice is
for allying ourselves at once with the
Phelatahs. If the nations that sur-
round this great lake can but remain
united, they may force back those
enemies, who, superior in weapons,
but far inferior in true courage, now,
according to the warning words of that

t

pho ag

+ ital: ng lori

Realmah. 101

noble ambassador, who has just retired
from the assembly, threaten the entire
destruction of our heaven-descended
race.”

A murmur passed through the
assembly—a murmur which could not
be construed otherwise than into an
approval of the sentiments which the
aged chief of the East had brought for-
ward with unwonted eloquence.

It was at this inopportune moment
that poor Realmah had to explain his
unasked-for presence amongst them.
After another profound obeisance, he
thus began : “Great lords and dividers
of bread, I am but a child, and how shall
I dare to address this reverend assem-
blage? But, while you have been de-
bating upon this grave matter, I have
been examining with anxious care the
manner of that ambassador. In one
word, my gracious fathers, it is not that
of atrueman. His gifts are everywhere.
With whom, when out of your gracious
presence, has he been most in company?
With the most easily beguiled and the
weakest persons of our town. From
them, I know, he has ascertained the
number of our warriors, the strength of
our fortresses, and the extent of our
hunting-fields. He has made the most
curious inquiries into our arms of attack
und defence, into the state of our hoarded
provisions, into the fidelity of our subject
tribes. What then, I ask, is his object ?
I do not deny that his nation, like ours,
dreads the approach of a people far
superior to either in the weapons of
war, all of whom carry arms which are
possessed only by a few of our wealthiest
chiefs, and which are looked upon rather
as curiosities thanas the daily implements
of warfare. The policy of the Phelatahs,
if I read this man rightly, is to render our
nation subject and tributary to theirs,
and so to oppose a bold front to the
common enemy. But what matters it
to whom we are subject, if we are sub-
jected at all? What 1 would, with the
due humility of youth, propose is, that
if we send our forces to join with theirs,
we should not send at once the whole
flower of our army, but should divide it
into two bands, one of which should

openly unite with them, while the other,
concealed, should be ready to counteract
the effect of any attempt on their part
to take captive our men, and employ
them hereafter as vassals against the
common foe.”

Realmah ceased speaking ; and there
was again the same look of polite in-
difference which had greeted him upon
his entrance. He bowed, and withdrew.

It may be noticed, by the way, that
he quite forgot, or was too nervous, to
deliver the fine peroration to his speech
with which he had favoured his wives.

The debate was resumed ; but the
words of the chief of the East were not
so powerful as they had been. The chief
of the North, whether really convinced
by Realmah’s speech, or being anxious
to break the power of the East by en-
couraging family differences, leant en-
tirely to Realmah’s view of the question.

“To adopt the young man’s suggestion
would,” he said, “ make no real difference
except in detail. Two troops might as
well be sent out asone. The Phelatahs
had always been false ; and he had found
that the nettle did not sting yesterday,
or to-day, for the first time ; but, as far
as his poor experience went back, it had
always been a stinging plant ; and, as
far as his poor discernment foresaw, it
always would be. He reminded them
of the proverb, ‘That if judgment
belongs to the old, quickness of percep-
tion belongs to the young ;’ or, to speak
in the language of the people, that the
young foal of the ass might have better
sight than the father of lions. That, for
his part, he had noticed that even the
prejudices of the vulgar were often based
upon something substantial, which chiefs
of high lineage might not have con-
descended to observe. Even the in-
firmities of Realmah might have rendered
his observation very keen—keen as that
of a woman ; and the great chiefs then
present knew full well that their wives
sometimes made observations which
were worth attending to, and which
they themselves, conscious of their own
power and dignity, had not cared to
make, The weasel in its own small
circuit saw more clearly than the bison.

102

which relied upon its force, and not upon
its sharpness of vision.

“Ina word, he was not for discarding
a prudent suggestion, from whatever
source it might come, and his vote should
be heartily given in favour of that young
man’s proposal who had just withdrawn
from them, and to whom he should be
more inclined to listen, from the fact
that the young man must have imbibed
some of the wisdom of his uncle, the
great chief of the East.”

This artful and judicious speech had
great weight with the assemblage ; and,
after long debate, it was finally agreed
that the plan proposed by Realmah

should be adopted by the Council.

After the reading was ended, there
was no conversation of any importance
to record, and the party separated ;
Ellesmere merely saying that he should,
hereafter, have a few remarks to make
upon the singular advantages of being a
savage like Realmah, and having three
wives ; even though two of them should
be obviously plain and prosaic; two
of whom he would always be able to
set against the third.

CHAPTER V.

My master, Mr. Milverton, delighted in
frequent excursions of a very humble
kind. He used to say that we did not
make half use enough of our opportuni-
ties while living in the country: that
there was always much to be seen
within a circle of fifteen miles radius
—all manner of beautiful and interest-
ing things. His idea of a tour was
not rushing off to Spain or Italy at
the rate of thirty miles an hour, but
going up a canal in a little boat, or
travelling along rustic roads in a pony
carriage at the rate of five miles
an hour, and taking everything very
coolly. “Look,” he would say, “ at
the charming uncertainty you have about
your dinner in these excursions. Then,
again, how amused you always are at a
country inn. The pictures alone are
quite a treat, and convey to you some-

Realmah.

thing of the history of the last seventy
years.”

Ellesmere, of course, opposed and
ridiculed Mr. Milverton’s views. He
maintained there was nothing like
sitting in a comfortable room where
there were nice, sleep-provoking arm-
chairs ; not that, as he used to observe,
Milverton’s arm-chairs were comfort-
able, but that they were well-intended.
It used to amuse me, this praise of
sitting at home, coming from one of
the most restless mortals that was
ever born; for he never could keep
quiet for a quarter of an hour toge-
ther, but would walk round the room
while the others were ‘talking; and a
favourite mode of motion of his was to
place the chairs so that he could
step from one to the other, and thus
expend his terrible restlessness. How-
ever, though invariably opposing Mil-
verton’s excursions, he was always ready
to join in them.

Un the present occasion Mr. Milverton
suggested that we should go to a little
inn about eight miles distant, which
overlooked a small arm of the sea,
where it is proposed to construct a
harbour. We set off on a beautiful
day, and soon reached our inn. The
tide was out, and there was a huge
expanse of mud visible.

Ellesmere. What a delicious odour of
mud! How gratifying it is to have ex-
changed our own poor atmosphere for this
——s air. ;

ilverton. I always think when I see
this place at the time of the receding tide,
which gives somewhat of an ungracious
aspect to the landscape, how like it is to a
person of a fitful temper. The present state
represents a sullen mood ; but soon you will
see the pleasant tide come up again, and all
the scenery about you will become most
beautiful—as the human being does, when
he has thrown off his sullenness.

Ellesmere. I think I have heard you
indulge in this simile before. I should be
very sorry to show that it does not walk on
four legs ; but I cannot help observing that
the tide ebbs and flows with regularity,
whereas the temper, if I may judge from
Lady Ellesmere’s, is apt to be a little un-
certain in its movements.

Lady Ellesmere. It cannot be said, my

Realmah.

love, that your temper partakes of un-
certainty.

Ellesmere. A truly conjugal remark, and
as true as it is conjugal.

We then separated until dinner-time,
rambling about amongst the rocks and
the mud, active as any children in pick-
ing up sea-weed and shells, and catching
crabs : one of which gave a severe bite
to Ellesmere, who, with his accustomed
good-nature, did not avenge the bite
upon the crab, but merely observed, as
he put it into its little pool again, “that
he was sure it was a female, and did
not understand when any kindness was
meant for it.”

We had a very pleasant dinner, and
were somewhat scolded by the landlady
of the inn for our sad deficiency of
appetite ; though I thought we all ate
like ploughboys.

After dinner Mr, Cranmer talked in a
most official manner about all the things
which he foresaw would happen in foreign
and domestic politics ; not without sun-
«ry sneers and sniffs from Sir John Elles-
mere, whom Mr. Cranmer’s talk always
provokes to all kinds of sarcastic oppo-
sition. The conversation proceeded thus,
as well as I can recollect it.

Milverton. ll political prophecy is so
difficult. Ellesmere owns that he cannot
foresee what will happen in the course of
a three-volume novel. Now, I do not feel
such difficulty in that. If there is a stream
near the principal house, there is sure to
be an accident on the water; one of the
chief personages—generally a lady—tum-
bles in, and, of course, there is to be a
rescue from a watery grave. If a distant
uncle is mentioned, he is sure to make
his appearance, dead or alive, in the third
volume at a very convenient time for the
fortunes of the hero or heroine. No: I do
not feel that difficulty about novels. There
you have only to watch the mind of one
man, the author ; but, as regards political
prophecy, it is a very different thing. Now
I wish, for the sake of making a curious
experiment, that any one of you, at the
outset of any political movement, would
write down (it must be in writing) what
you really think will happen. You will, I
believe, be astonished to find how mistaken
your prophecy will be. Where men are so
deluded, and think that they foresee far
more than they do, is in this way—that

103

they keep on modifying, from day to day,
their prophecy, in correspondence with the
daily changes of events. I have watched
this matter for years—at least, as regards
my own mind—and have often found how
wrong my prophetic anticipations have been.
I remember hearing one of the shrewdest
ministers of our time say that he joined a
ministry, thinking it would only last seven
weeks. “You see,” he said, “they were
old friends of mine, and they had asked me
to join them. And I felt that, being old
friends, I was quite willing to bao of
their downfall ; and here I have been years
in office with them.”

No one can see how a ministry will fall,
or how a war will end, or how any series
of political events will come to a conclusion.

declare I never knew a ministry go
out upon the exact questions they were
expected to go out upon.

Sir Arthur. We are thrown back to the
old French proverb, “Nothing is certain
but the unforeseen.”

Ellesmere. I hate proverbs; they are
such bumptious things : they are like boys
of sixteen ; they all want taking down, not
one peg, but many pegs.

Sir Arthur. I must say I delight in
French proverbs. Now, what can be better
than the celebrated proverb, “ Nothing suc-
ceeds like success” ?

Milverton. The opposite is quite as
true, “Nothing succeeds like the want of
success ;” or, to put it in another way,
“None are so successful as the unsuc-
cessful.” It all depends upon the meaning
you give to the word success. Do you
remember how the late Lord Carlisle, good
man, used to delight in a saying (where it
originally came from I do not know) which
ran thus, “ Heaven is a place made for the
unsuccessful”? You may depend upon it
there is, even in this world, nothing in the
world so dangerous for a man as to be for a
long time supremely successful. I think on
this head that the first Napoleon’s career is
one of the most instructive that the world
has ever seen. If he had had but a little
less success before he made that fatal blunder
of invading Russia, he might have acted
with something like wisdom; and an unin-
terrupted dynasty of his might still be upon
the throne of France.

By the way, I was reading the other day
another account of that invasion of Russia
(a portion of history which I am never tired
of reading), and I observed that one division
of the army—I think it was Murat’s—had
been reduced before it returned to Wilna to
400 infantry and 500 dismounted cavalry,
without any guns, or any materials of

104

war of any kind. Now, that division
probably started with 60,000 or 70,000
men. But the most instructive thing of
that campaign is to observe the won-
derful pedantry and perverse obstinacy,
in ignoring the most obvious facts, which
that great man Napoleon manifested to the
end of the campaign. He would draw up
the most admirable orders of the day, but
unfortunately facts were against him ; ani
it was no good ordering that 20,000 men
should go here, and 30,000 men go there,
when the division in question was almost
annihilated. From the first opening of the
campaign, however, there was the same want
of skill manifested, and the same abjuration
of facts. Now, it was thought a wonderfully
clever thing throughout Europe, that the
Emperor should have arranged his 5,000
wagons in military fashion ; but any man,
who knows anything about wagons, carters,
and oxen—Wren Hoskyns or Mr. Mechi,
for instance—could have told him that a
transport of this kind could not be arranged
in a purely military fashion.

Ellesmere. For goodness’ sake do not let
Milverton get upon the subject of war. At
all hazards he should be stopped in talking
about it.

Let me see, what were we talking about
before? Oh! proverbs: well, I say a pro-
verb is like a rule in grammar. I remember
there was a detestable Greek grammar, which
was the torment of my early days, and which
used to lay down some rule, and then there
used to come pages of exceptions. In my
perverse way, I used to make one of the
exceptions the rule, and throw the rule
into one of the exceptions. I hate grammar!

But to return to proverbs: as I suid
before, they are such bumptious things. It
may be said of them what the late Lord
Melbourne said of dear Macaulay, “ They
are so cock-sure about everything.”

Cranmer. I wonder to hear you say
“dear Macaulay ;” I should have thought
that, being such a great talker, he would
have interfered with you, Sir John.

Ellesmere. Do you? you are quite mis-
taken then. Who was it said of Matt
Lewis—

“T would give many a sugar-cane,

Matt Lewis were alive again ” !

so I, being by nature a poet, say—

“T would bear a load of pain,
So Macaulay were alive again.”

If I were invited to meet him, I always

went. It is true he was a great talker, but
who talked so well? There was no vanity
in his talk. There was simply an exuberant

Realmah.

knowledge and an exquisite enjoyment of
the subject he was discoursing about. I can
tell you, I did not interrupt him: I was
always too glad to hear him talk. He would
lay hold of a particular author, and in a
short time (say twenty minutes) give you
the whole pith and marrow of that author.
I remember his doing so once with Cobbett,
and one had, I believe, in this brief twenty
minutes all the best things ever said by
that most vigorous writer.

Then if any of the less prominent
characters in history were mentioned, he
had anecdotes about them which were
known to no one else.

I remember his once describing to us the
character and sayings of Lord Thurlow ; and
he told a story of that large-eye-browed
personage which I never heard before, and
each of you ought to give me half-a-crown
at least, if I agree to tell you. Are the
half-crowns forthcoming? (We nodded
assent.)

Well, those were days when we had not
the infliction of railways, and when bar-
risters, even on the Northern circuit, tra-
velled in post-chaises. It fell to the lot of
a very saintly, good man, to have to travel
with Thurlow, who was then Attorney-
General. A journey to the North was a
serious thing in those times, and my saintly
friend dreaded the long journey, with the
blustering Attorney-General, who he was
sure would utter many naughty words befure
they arrived at York.

They had hardly left London before the
good man remarked, “ We shail have a long
journey, Mr. Attorney, and so I thought |
would bring some books to amuse us. |
daresay it is a long time since you have read
Milton’s ‘ Paradise Lost.’ Shall I read
some of it to you? It will remind us of our
younger days.” (In those days men read
vreat works; for there were not so many
books of rubbishing fiction, to which the
reading energies of the present day are
directed.) “ Oh, by all means!” said Thur-
low, “I have not read a word of Milton for
years.”

The good man began to read out his
Milton : presently he came to the passage
where Satan exclaims, “ Better to reign in
hell than serve in Heaven.” Upon which
Thurlow exclaimed, ‘‘ A d——-d fine fellow,
and I hope he may win.” My saintly friend
in horror shut up his “ Paradise Lost,” and
felt that it would be no good reading to
the Attorney-General, if he was to be in-
terrupted by such wicked expressions of
sentiment.

Milverton. Did you ever read Macaulay’s
poem on his defeat at Edinburgh? It isa

Realnah.

most noble production. I am ashamed to
say I cannot recollect it correctly ; but the
next time we meet I will read it out to
you.

Cranmer. I really cannot understand
how Sir John could have endured the en-
forced silence which Lord Macaulay’s talk
must have imposed upon him.

Ellesmere. I am a misunderstood man,
not only by Secretaries of the Treasury, but
by all people who come near me. I am un
homme incompris. Now, I ask you all, did
I interrupt Milverton when he was going on
with his “ Realmah” story? If a talk or
reading is good, I am the last man in the
world to interrupt it. I only interrupt
folly, irrelevancy, inaccuracy, and incom-
plete logic. Iam the best listener in the
United Kingdom when there is anything
worth listening to; but I am, I repeat, a
misunderstood man. Poor dear Charles
Lamb complains that he was in the same
plight. Nine-tenths of the world do not
understand a joke ; and no official man, Mr,
Cranmer, ever does. Why even my wife
does not understand me.

Lady Ellesmere. No, my dear, it would

take nine of the cleverest women in England
to understand you, and they must pass the
chief part of their time in interchanging

notes about your character.

Ellesmere. Let us enumerate the nine—
only, for goodness’ sake, do not let them be
nine Muses.

Let me see, what should be their func-
tions ?—

1. The arch-concoctor of salads.

2. The sewer-on of buttons.

3. The intelligent maker of bread-sauce,

. The player of Beethoven’s music.
5. The player of common tunes,—“ Old
Dog Tray,” “ Early in the Morning,”
“ Pop Goes the Weasel,” and “ Pad-
dle your own Canoe,”
all of which tunes I think beautiful; but,
of course, because the populace approves
of them, which populace is the best judge
of such things: my Lady Ellesmere must
needs turn up her nose (and a very pretty
one it is) against any one who admires
these tunes, and she declines to play them
to me.

Lady Ellesmere. I can well imagine you
do admire these “tunes,” as you call them.
It is certainly worth my while to get up
Beethoven for you, when “Early in the
Morning ” satisfies you quite as well.

But pray go on with your list of wiyes,
Sir John.

Ellesmere.

6. The consoler under difficulties.

7. The good reader.

105

8. The one beloved wife (dear deluded
creature) who always believes in her
husband, and takes him to be the
discreetest, virtuousest, and most ill-
used of mortal men. 1 do love her!

9. The manager of the other wives.

By the way, has there not been some talk
of a tenth Muse? Well, if I am to have
a tenth wife, she shall be the noble and
rare creature who can cook a potato. My
list is now complete. My polygamic nature
is satisfied with these ten adorable beings.

Sir Arthur. Which will you be, Lady
Ellesmere !

Lady Ellesmere. The sewer-on of buttons.
I do not feel equal to the bread-sauce,
though that would be the lighter work of
the two if one’s mind could master it.

Ellesmere. But, come, let us go on with
Realmah, alias Milverton—the Milverton
who existed when that ground which is now
at the bottom of the Swiss lakes was at the
surface. I do like a story !

Mrs. Milverton. Is it not somewhat of
a confession of weakness on the part of Sir
John Ellesmere, that he likes a story? And
was he not a few minutes ago abusing
tiction ?

Ellesmere. No, it is not a confession of
weakness, Mrs. Milverton. And as for in-
consistency—to be consistent, one must be
dull ; and nobody can accuse me of that.

From the earliest ages of the world,
when men dwelt in tents, and looked
out upon the stars at midnight, delighting
in them more than in any other created
thing, men and women would gather round
a fire, and listen entranced through the
dark hours of night, to any one who
would tell them a story ; however absurd,
however inconsistent, however improbable,
that story might be. Not that I mean for
a moment to say, Mrs. Milverton, that your
husband invents absurd, inconsistent, and
improbable stories. Doubtless all that he
says is absolutely true, and must, as he
assures us, have happened. Did not his
nymph tell him ?—By the way, I wonder
you are not jealous of that same nymph :
women can contrive to be jealous of any
thing, or person, or animal, or even insect—
and you see how she inspires him with a
higher degree of inspiration than can be
gained from yourself, or any other person
who exists upon this solid earth.

Mrs. Milverton. I do not know what
jealousy is, Sir John.

Ellesmere. Happy woman! I observe
that Milverton is silent: he knows very
well what jealousy is, at least on your part.
Why, if 1 were to poke the fire in his
study, you would be jealous that you had

106 Realmah.,

not done it : you are all alike, and jealousy
is nine-tenths of your love. Whereas, with
us men, jealousy is almost a thing unknown.

By the way, which of the three young
savage ladies, that we are introduced to in
Realmah, do you think you most resemble ?
Is it the prudent Varnah, the beautiful
Talora, or the incomparable Ainah (with
large hands and feet), that you are willing
— classed with ?

Milverton. Mrs. Milverton possesses the
merits of all the three in her own person—
the beauty of Talora, the prudence of the
pa a and the sympathetic nattire of the
Ainah.

Ellesmere. You have not a few shillings
about you, have you, Mrs. Milverton, that
you could give your husband for that speecli ?
for I am sure it is one that requires to be
paid for.

Now, Milverton, do zo on: I declare
seriously I am thoroughly interested in your
story, and will not make a single interrup-
tion, until those shining waters desert their
charming mud, and the stars come out,
and we order our horses, and return to the
solid comforts and second-rate arm-chairs in
Milverton’s smoke-dried study.

THE STORY OF REALMAH.
CHAP. V.
REALMAH VISITS TALORA,

TueErE are few words more abused than
the word “love.” It is the most com-
monly-used word in all languages, except
the word “money,” and some short
emphatic word, or other, signifying a
curse. But as to the substance, it is rare.
Now Talora was a girl incompetent to
love any person supremely but herself.

In that age of the world beautiful
women must have suffered from the loss
of one great source of pleasure. They
hal no looking-glasses. This want they
endeavoured to supply, in a very dim
and poor manner, by burnished shells.
And there was always the glassy water
from which the fair dwellers on the lake
could gain some indistinct notion of their
beauty.

From what has been said above, it
must not be supposed that Talora was
a peculiarly heartless person. She was
fond of her father, when he did not
thwart her, and yery gracious and good-
natured to her companions, when they

submitted to her rule. Greatly admired
in her own section of the city, she put a
high value on herself, and was much
afraid of contracting any marriage that
should not be fully worthy of her.

In personal appearance she was tall,
shapely, and bright-looking ; with crisp,
wavy hair, brilliant eyes, that had not
much meaning in them, a pleasant smile,
and some very engaging dimples. Her
high rank, for she was the only daughter
of the chief of the North, entitled her to
be sought for by the noblest youths of
the city.

This was the maiden in whose favour
Realmah had placed all his future hopes
of happiness. She regarded him witha
certain kindliness, and even perceived
that he was the most intelligent man she
had ever seen ; but his infirmity, which
she naturally thought would surely pre-
vent his attaining the highest rank,
rendered her very careful of giving him
encouragement.

Athlah, the second son of the chief of
the South, was also one of her suitors.
He was a coarse, violent man, who, as
far as bravery was concerned, had already
distinguished himself in war; and he
looked with supreme contempt upon the
presumption of Realmah, whom he held
to be a poor feeble creature, destined for
ever to partake of the occupations of
women.

Athlah was not a man of sound judg-
ment, or far-seeing sagacity; but he
had considerable gifts of Nature, which
gained for him credit and high standing
amongst the men of his own town.
Besides being a brave warrior, he was a
bold, fluent, and forcible speaker. His
speeches abounded in strong metaphors,
quaint similes, and homely proverbs ;
and, in speaking, he was ever most
powerful when most abusive.

In the Council of the Four Hundred
he was always gladly listened to, and
men renowned for state-craft rejoiced to
see Athlah rise in the debate ; for they
felt certain that somebody was then going
to be soundly chastised, and that there
would be fun and life and real battle.

It is a strange thing to say, but when
the number of any public body exceeds

- ae

that of forty or fifty, the whole assembly
has an element of joyous childhood in
it, and each member revives at times the
glad, mischievous nature of his schoolboy
days.
aie themselves the first-rate
statesmen spoke depreciatingly of Athlah,
as a man whose opinion in public affairs
was worth very little; but, as I said
before, they were all (all but the victim
who probably foresaw his fate) delighted
when the tall form of Athlah rose in
the assembly, for they knew that some-
thing was coming which would break
through the pattering monotony of dull,
though wise, debate.

Athlah was a perfect master of the
art of sneering, which, however, is not
an art that demands the highest ability.

It was to the apartments of Talora
that Realmah betook himself after his
speech in the council. He told her
what he had done, and she sympathised
with him to a certain extent. She also
made many inquiries about the dress of
the ambassador from the Phelatahs, and
how he wore his beard. Then she
amused herself and Realmah, by making
ugly faces—as far as Talora vould make
ugly faces—to imitate the grim chief of
the South ; and walked about the room
with pompous step, and head thrown
back, to imitate the dignified gestures of
the proud chief of the West. For
Talora was a great mimic. Realmah,
deep in love, mistook this mimicry for
wit.

At this moment Athlah coming in,
and not being over-pleased to see
Realmah there, sarcastically inquired
whether he had come to help Talora to
spin, whereupon she smiled pleasantly
at the new comer, and seemed to enjoy
the jest. She then told Athlah that
Realmah had been present at the great
council, and recounted the advice he
had urged upon the chiefs.

Athlah was provoked at what he con-
sidered the presumption of Realmah, in
venturing to enter a council-room, where
he (Athlah) would not have dared to
intrude.

“ Ah!” he exclaimed, “I see we are
going to borrow an arrow from the sheaf

Realmah.

107

of that wise tribe, the Doolmies. When
they go to war, there is always a band of
girl-warriors ; and these are found to be
very useful in killing those who are too
badly wounded to make any resistance,
and in despoiling the dead. Indeed,
they are serviceable in many ways after a
battle, and we call them the Doolmie
she-crows, birds not quite as noble as
vultures, but nearly as useful. I sup-
pose” (turning to Realmah) “ you will
take the command of this redoubtable
band, and they will doubtless becalled the
Realmahras, Oh! it is not for nothing
that you stay at home with the women,
and that your knitted brows bear the
signs of such deep thought. Your
subtle wit becomes almost equal to that
of the other girls. The council must
have been delighted with this wise
advice which they received from one so
skilled in war.”

Then Athlah went on to say, “Seta
weasel to catch a rat. I do not won-
der that Realmah sees through the deep
designs of the false Phelatah. Even,
with my poor wit, I have observed that
these emissaries, called ambassadors, are
not so very unlike old women, being
taken from the ranks of those elderly
warriors who have not been greatly re-
nowned in war, and have somehow,
from excess of bravery nodoubt, managed,
through a long career of warlike service,
to return from battle without such
vulgar signs of it as wounds. We, mere
rough men of war, often fail to under-
stand those sage ambassadors ; but femi-
nine craft, when matched against theirs,
from its kindred nature, easily discovers
their false designs and cunning purposes.
Realmah dear,! I congratulate you upon
your rendering such great service to the
state.”

Realmah had not attempted to inter-
rupt this sneering tirade of Athlah’s,
nor did he show, by look or gesture,
that it affected him in the least. It was
not quite the same when Talora, after
laughing heartily at Athlah’s sayings,
maliciously added, “ That Athlah must
recollect that, if Realmah had not had

1 Athlah used the word klava, the feminine
form of the word ‘‘dear.”,

108

much practice in the art of war, he had
invented two or three new ways of
playing mikree.! Besides, with his
elever tongue, he would outtalk even
the girls, and so keep them in order.”

Realmah laid his hand lightly upon
Athlah’s arm, and said, “The All-
powerful One, not to be named, has given
you strong arms and brave ones, Athlah ;
He has also given you a strong and cruel
tongue; but He has not blessed you
with a big heart; for if He had, you
would not pour insult upon one who has
been weak and maimed from his birth,
and who cannot answer you in the only
way in which you deserve to be an-
swered, and which you would best
understand,”

Athlah, who, though coarse and
violent, was not really a bad-liearted
fellow, and a thoroughly brave man, felt
the rebuke keenly, and blushed a blush
that was quite visible even under his
dusky skin, stammering out something
about people not understanding what
was merely spoken in jest.

ltealmah then approached Talora, and
said, “ Always as witty as beautiful ;
but still I think Talora might have been
kinder to her poor slave, remembering
too that it was to please her, when
they were boy and girl together, that he
invented the new ways of playing
mikree, which he is proud to see still
find favour with the mikree-playing
boys and girls of Abibah.”

He then smiled, bowed, and began to
retire.

As he reached the matted hanging
which was at the entrance of the apart-
ment, he found that Athlah had inter-
cepted him, who, in an awkward way,
held out his hand. Realmah grasped
it warmly, for he felt that the rude
soldier meant to offer an apology, which
was a great effort of good-nature for
him. While still retaining Athlah’s
hand in his, Realmah said, ‘* You have
a bigger and a better heart than I sup-
posed, Athlah ; forgive me for having
spoken so unjustly and unkindly.”

Realmah then took his departure, and
walked wearily back to his own home,

1 A sort of game like prisoner's bars.

where he neither expected, nor sought
for, consolation.

As he walked he muttered to himself,
“The she-spider for fierceness, and the
she-adder for spite” (a proverb of the
Sheviri, probably directed against
women). “I suppose the proverb is
true,” he added ; “and that the same
thing holds good throughout all nature.”

But not the less did he love Talora.
Tier faults were the faults of her sex ;
her merits, all her own. If the tolerance
that is created by love could be carried
into other relations of human life, what
a happy world it would be !—almost
realizing Christianity.

When he had returned to his own
home, he was kindly greeted by his
wives, the Varnah and the Ainah. The
Ainah looked wistfully at him, expecting
and hoping to hear some account of his
success. But he was silent upon that
subject.

The good Varnah scolded him heartily
for being late for his meal, and said that
he was like no other person in Abibah,
but was always late. She had, how-
ever, prepared for him, knowing that he
would be tired, what she had heard him
say that he liked best. Realmah thanked
her, and praised her for her thoughtful-
ness, and then, during the meal, chatted
pleasantly about household matters and
household goods, to the great delight of
the Varnah, who said to herself that
some day Realmah might become quite
like other people, which was the greatest
praise that she could give to anybody.

The Ainah said nothing, fearing to
ask the questions which she longed to
ask, and conjecturing his failure at the
council from his silence.

Realmah’s heart and soul were far
away from household stuff, meditating
battles, sieges, and surprises, in which

tealmah himself was not to take a
small or unimportant part.

CHAP. VI.

THE TREACHERY OF THE PHELATAIIS.

Reatman felt bitterly the cold recep-
tion he had met with from the council of

Realmah.

the chiefs; and he had not the slightest
idea that his proposition had received a
favourable hearing.

On the ensuing day, after the council
had been held, the ambassador from the
Phelatahs was dismissed, with an as-
surance, however, that in two months’
time the forces of the Sheviri should
join those of the Phelatahs, just where
the river Coolahva falls into the great
lake.

Notwithstanding this friendly assu-
rance the council had resolved to adopt
Realmah’s advice—at least, so far as to
«divide their forces into two bands: the
one was to march along the margin of
the lake, while the other, starting a day
or two earlier, was to make its way
through the woods—the two divisions
having previously arranged a system of
correspondence by means of signals

Athlah was entrusted with the com-
mand of the main body, which moved
along the margin of the lake, while
Realmah had the guidance of the de-
tachment that was to force its way
through the woods. There was much
murmuring at Realmah’s being entrusted
with the command of these troops. The
excuses given for his appointment were,
that the idea of sending this second
division was his; that the men of whom
it consisted were not the flower of the
army; that, in all probability, they
would never be engaged, and that they
were merely sent by way of precaution,
and were to return, if possible, unper-
ceived by their allies, shoul their coun-
trymen not require their assistance.

Every arrangement having now been
made, the expedition set out and joined
the Phelatahs. Nothing occurred for
some little time to justify any suspicion.
At length, however, it was to be ob-
served that the Phelatahs far outnum-
bered their allies ; that, when the united
forces halted during the march, it was
the Phelatahs who occupied always the
most commanding positions ; and, more-
over, there was an air of triumph about
them that did not fail to rouse the atten-
tion even of the fearless and unsuspect-
ing Athlah.

The united troops continued their

109

march. Slight occasions of dispute
arose which were made the most of by
the chiefs of the Phelatahs. Finally,
under pretence of there being insubor-
dination (although there had been no
questicn of allowing supremacy to the
Phelatahs) the principal leaders of the
Sheviri were seized and bound ; gratuities
were offered to the common soldiers ;
the mask was entirely thrown off ; and
the unfortunate Sheviri found them-
selves incorporated in a foreign army.

Gratuities, however, do not compen-
sate for insults ; and the common sol-
diers felt themselves as much aggrieved
as their chiefs, who had been released
from their bonds, but who were strictly
guarded as they marched along, and
were treated in all respects as hostages,
if not as captives.

Tidings of this treachery on the part
of the Phelatahs did not fail to reach
Realmah. He skilfully prepared a night
surprise, which was so far successful
that, after a fearful and confused con-
test, he was able to liberate the chiefs
of the Sheviri, and to cover the flight
of the main body of men into the adja-
cent woods, from whence, burning with
a sense of injury, they returned to
their own town in a few weeks alter
they had left it.

The whole army felt that Realmah’s
prudence had saved them; and he
became, for the moment, the hero of
the Sheviri.

His return to the city was welcomed
in a triumphal manner, for, though the
Sheviri had suffered much in the night
attack and in the subsequent contest, to
have escaped so great a disaster as the
capture of their finest body of troops
was held to be a signal cause of tri-
umph.

Immediately a meeting of the great
Council of the Four Hundred was held,
and the whole of the transactions of the
short campaign were explained to them
by Athlah and Realmah.

Xealmah’s speech was eminently judi-
cious. He said not a word in self-glo-
rification, nor did he in any way refer
to his past warnings, but merely men-
tioned to the great council that he had

110

laid some facts before the Council of
the Three Fours, which facts had acci-
dentally come to his notice, and which
had led them, in their high wisdom, to
make such arrangements of the forces
as had insured a complete defeat of the
wicked design of the Phelatahs. When
he left the council he had not by self-
praise exhausted any of the gratitude
and respect which he now felt sure
would be entertained for him by his
nation.

That there is nothing new under the
sun is the remark of wearied Solomon.
Not wholly a true remark ; for was not
Christianity a new thing? But still
the saying holds good for the most part
in human affairs. The system of the
Roman Empire of having a Cesar as
well as an Augustus had been adopted,
or rather anticipated, long ago by the
Sheviri, and had doubtless been bor-
rowed by them from some more ancient
nation. There was at this moment a

vacancy in the office of Cesar, 7.e. of

second in command, to the chief of the
East. The name of this office was Lu-
athmor. By general acclamation this
great office was conferred upon Real-
mah. The insignia consisted of a coronet
rudely formed of dark polished stones
and feathers, and of a blue scarf called
the shemar. The shemar, however, did
not strictly belong to the office of the
Luathmor, but had almost always been
granted at the same time to the person
on whom that office had been conferred.

No one murmured when it was de-
creed unanimously by the Council of
the Four Hundred and by the Council
of the Three Fours that permission to
wear the blue shemar should be con-
ferred upon this young chief, Realmah,
whose sagacity had gone far to save the
republic ; for men are always very grate-
ful just at first, and when the remem-
brance of the service rendered is fresh
and warm in their minds.

After the reading had finished, I am
sorry to say that we had rather a painful
scene. Sir John Ellesmere has great
merits, as every one knows; and I am
sure no one admires him more than I

‘tuse, Sir John.

Realmah.

do ; but he is one of those persons who
indulge in intellectual antipathies. This
Mr. Cranmer is just the man to keep Sir
John in a perpetual state of irritation.

I cannot recollect exactly how the
conversation began, but I think it was
by either Mrs. Milverton or Lady Elles-
mere saying, “ Oh, how I wish our dear
Mr. Dunsford were alive ; how delighted
he would be with the character of Real-
mah, and with all the proceedings that
took place in the great Lake City.”

My readers may perhaps remember
that the former conversations of the
“ Friends in Council” were collected by
a good clergyman of the name of Duns-
ford, who had been tutor to Mr. Milver-
ton and Sir John Ellesmere.

Mr. Cranmer then remarked, that Sir
John must have been a great torment
to Mr. Dunsford, and must have given
him many an unhappy hour.

Ellesmere. Sir, I did nothing of the kind.
Dunsford thoroughly understood me. I
never gave him an unhappy hour, or an un-
happy five minutes. It was impossible to
admire a man more than I admired Duns-
ford; and of course he knew it. These
simple, unselfish, transparently good people,
like Dunsford, are the salt of the earth, and
happily they are to be found everywhere.
You cannot enter into any small portion of
society, but you find them there, believing
in the good of everybody, and bringing out
the good points of every character. Sir, I
am not such a fool as not to have known
how far I could go with dear old Dunsford.
I never provoked him more than such aman
ought to be provoked, in order to show forth
the full beauty of his character.

Cranmer. Crushed herbs are very sweet.

Ellesmere. Sir, he was never crushed by
me. He was not one of those men who
require to be trepanned in order that a joke,
or a jesting objection, should be inserted into
their dense brains. He was a good clergy-
man, and not an obtuse official man.

Cranmer. Oh, of course, I am very ob-
I am sure I did not mean
any offence.

[Ellesmere got up, and, in his pleasantest
manner, offered his hand to Mr. Cranmer. |

Ellesmere. Now don’t be angry with me,
there’s a good fellow: we shall be famous
friends when we understand one another
better ; only it is rather hard upon one to
be obliged to explain that one does not
mean any harm by one’s foolish talk. Don’t

imagine, Mr. Cranmer, that I don’t appre-
ciate you. Didn't I listen to you most
patiently, and vote with you too in all
emergencies, when you were fighting the
estimates the last session when you and I
were in office together? and I declare no
man could have done it better than you
did, and I sympathised with you thoroughly.
[Turning to us, Ellesmere continued :] What
a hand at explanation he was! Some foolish
person wished to understand something
about an estimate, and presumed to ask a
question. Cranmer rose to explain ; he was
lucid, frank, candid, especially candid ; and
when he sat down, the House felt that
something had been well explained, and yet
one understood less about the subject gene-
rally than one did before. Now I take this
to be a triumph of skill on the part of a
great Government official.

Moreover, it is not a delusion impressed
upon us by him, for really one does often
find that when an explanation is given of
any complicated matter, one understands
less about it than one fancied one did before ;
and that the question one had asked was
silly and irrelevant. I can assure you, grave
official men on both sides of the House used
to nod approval, when Cranmer was giving
any of his clear and candid explanations.

{Mr. Cranmer took Sir John Ellesmere’s
hand, and gave it a most friendly grasp.
The ~ about the estimates had mollified
him.

Cranmer. It is impossible to be angry
with you, Sir John ; you make such pleasant
fun of all of us.

Ellesmere. It does me good to hear you
say so : we will never have a dispute again.
Quarrels are such vulgar things ; and you
xre the last man in the world I should like
to quarrel with. You are made to be in
office ; and does not one always want some
little job or other done, which the Secretary
of the Treasury can further ?

(We all made a point of laughing loudly
at this last speech, and harmony was from
that moment re-established ; Sir John EI-
lesmere resumed the conversation. ]

Ellesmere. I must show Cranmer that I
can be very serious, and I declare I am
really much interested in this history of
Realmah.

But it is not asking too much from us
to believe that this semi-savage was such
a great politician ?

Sir Arthur. Mr. Milverton has been
making me read that epic he talked to us
about—namely, the “ Araucana;” and I do
assure you that there are speeches in that
epic which show us that some of those
savages—as you call them—possessed a
No. 98,—vou. xv.

Realmah.

111

high kind of political wisdom. “ Vixere
fortes ante Agamemnona;” and I do not
see why there should not have lived con-
siderable statesmen in the earliest times of
the world’s history. You must remember.
too, that their statesmanship was of a much
easier character than ours: that they had
not the complicated questions arising out of
a state of high civilization to deal with.

Ellesmere. You have been in high office,
Sir Arthur, and you might really tell us
whether Milverton speaks truly and justly,
when he asserts that there is so much to be
done in the way of improving Government
action, even amongst ourselves, who imagine
that we are the best governed people upon
the earth.

Sir Arthur. If I understand Mr. Mil-
verton, I think he is quite right. I can see
that he wants more intellectual power
brought to the aid of Government. You
and I were at college together, Ellesmere ;
though I am sorry to say we saw very little
of one another.

Ellesmere. I was a poor man, a sizar,
and had to make my way in the world ;
you were a xich one; and people do not
often meet who live at different poles of
the pecuniary world.

Str Arthur. But I have no doubt you
knew Alwin ?

Ellesmere. Oh yes: the cleverest fellow
I ever did know.

Sir Arthur. Well, when I came into
office, one of my first thoughts was whether
I could get Alwin into the service of the
Government ; but he is a married man, and
has a large family, and is making a lot of
money quietly as a consulting counsel.
There was nothing I could offer him. What
would the Treasury have said to me if I
had asked them to give 3,000/. a year to
what Milverton calls an “in-doors states-
man?” It would have been no good point-
ing out to them that such a man might save
us 30,0001. a year. Mr. Cranmer is not on
my side of politics, but he knows very well
what an enormous difficulty I should have
had, to persuade any Secretary of the Trea-
sury to give 3,0001. a year to such a man.

Well, there is nothing hardly that that
man does not know, besides being a good
lawyer. He is a man of the greatest general
knowledge that I ever met with ; and it
happened that he was especially skilled in
matters relating to my department. But |
might as well have tried to have got the
man in the moon to work with me as to
have got Alwin.

Ellesmere. Milverton’s nymphs are very
valuable personages ; and they never charge
any money for their advice.

I

112 Realmah.

Milverton. Do not sneer at my nymphs ;
they are as useful to me as Pope’s sylphs
were to him in the “ Rape of the Lock.”

But to talk seriously about Government.
Do look at the difficulties ; consider that at
every step that a Government takes it is
beset by importunate and powerful interests.
Then look at the overwork of the principal
men connected with the Government. Then
see how the House of Commons is absorbed,
not in its own proper work so much as in that
which scarcely belongs to it, in executive as
well as in legislative business. Giving Par-
liament credit for immense ability, we must
admit that it is a body not fit for every kind
of business.

Ellesmere. Bureaucracy! bureaucracy !
Milverton always associates himself ‘in ima-
gination, and probably in reality, with
whatever is bureaucratic.

Milverton. I do not admit that. But I
want to bring before you another matter
bearing closely upon this subject, and that
is the unpleasantness of the capital as a
place of residence. This will some day
exercise a most malign influence over public
affairs.

Ellesmere. This is a new idea: but I
really do not see exactly what it means.

Milverton. I almost despair of making
you see it ; but I can tell you that the per-
manent officers of State—those men upon
whom every Government must mainly rely
—would well understand what I mean. No
sooner does any opportunity arise for getting
away from London, than all important
people quit it.

But I return to Ellesmere’s attack upon
me respecting my bureaucratic tendencies.

I maintain that there is not a person in
England who has a greater horror of bureav-
cracy than I have. I only want to point
out to you, that there are certain things
which can only be done by bureaucracy. I[
have talked all this out before, and there-
fore I am aware that I am only repeating
myself. Do you remember that passage in
Aristophanes, where some good citizen re-
solves to make peace or war upon his own
account simply, and to deal with the enemy
himself ?

Ellesmere. I never read that improper
book Aristophanes, but I am willing to take
for granted what you say.

Milverton. Well, you see how absurd it
is for a private individual to talk of making
peace or war by himself alone. But perhaps
you do not see that there are many other
matters in which also he cannot act alone.
What I am driving at is, to establish a wide
distinction between those things that can
be done by a private individual, and in

which he ought not to be interfered with,
and those things in which the State must
act for him.

Take sanitary matters—take education ;
these are things in which a private individual
cannot act very forcibly. They must be
transacted by Government.

Ellesmere. True: speaking as an indi-
vidual, I decline to have anything to do
with main drainage, or the Conscience
Clause.

Milverton. Then you admit that there
are some subjects in which the bureau must
act for the general community ; and I am
quite willing that the bureau should be con-
fined to this action.

Ellesmere. I was greatly struck, Milver-
ton, by the remark you made a little time
ago, that the aversion to London on the
part of men of importance isa serious injury
to public business. Do you hold to it, and
is it really your own !

Milverton. I do hold to it, but it is not
altogether my own. A late Under-Secretary
of State used often to talk over the matter
with me, and we thoroughly agreed upon it.
I maintain that the celebrated Chancellor
Oxenstiern’s maxim, “ Quantuld sapientid
regitur mundus,” is only partially true, and
that “ Quantulo tempore regitur mundus”
would be a much more valuable maxim.
The truth is, most men of average ability
are very capable of estimating good argu-
ments, pro or con, about any matter ; and
for my own part, I would rather have the
attention of an average man for two hours,
when the business really requires that time
for discussion, than the attention of the
cleverest man in England who will only
give you one hour.

Ask any person who has really mastered
the details of any great subject, and who has
had to lay them before other people for
decision. You will seldom find that he
complains of any want of apprehension on
their part, but that he will bitterly complain
that he was not allowed time enough to lay
before them the whole matter with all its
bearings.

Now, the time to be given for considering
a great subject is sure to be very much
limited when people are very anxious to get
away from the spot where the discussion
takes place. And so it becomes a matter of
great importance that the capital of every
country should be a pleasant place for resi-
dence, as the main business of the country
must be transacted there.

In all committees and councils, it is to be
observed that the man of endurance and
perseverance, who may, after all, be a very
inferior man in point of thoughtfulness, will

Realmah. 113

ultimately have too much power and influ-
ence. And it will be putting additional
leverage into his hands, if he knows that the
cleverest men amongst his opponents will be
anxious to get away at a certain time, and
that he can gain his point by outstaying
them, whether he outreasons them or not.

Sir Arthur. I want to bring another
branch of the subject before you. I think
there might be a better division than there
is of the functions of government. For in-
stance, I would have a Minister of Justice,
who should attend to matters of justice
only. I would at the same time have a
minister whose sole duty it should be to
attend to the physical weli-being of the com-
munity. I am not sure that I would not
also throw upon him the business of educa-
tion. And then, to make room for this
important minister, I would cancel those
offices which are becoming obsolete. I
would, for instance, cancel the Privy Seal,
in order to make room for a Minister of
Health and Education.

Milverton. I entirely agree with you,
Sir Arthur. Then there is another thing I
would do. I would certainly make more
use of the men who hold second-class places
in Government. I think it is very hard
upon them that, for the most part, they
have their tongues tied, and that they are
distanced in public estimation by those who
are called independent members, who, being
free from official trammels, have oppor-
tunities of distinguishing themselves Thich
are denied to official personages of the
second class.

Sir Arthur. This is very difficult, Mil-
verton. You see, it would be a very
serious thing for an Under-Secretary of
State to be speaking in a contrary sense to
his chief.

Milverton. I know all that, but I would
occasionally give him an opportunity of dis-
tinguishing himself. I would entrust him,
for instance, with the sole conduct of some
great measure.

Ellesmere. How true men are to them-
selves and their old positions! Sir Arthur
cannot forget that he has been a Secretary
of State.

Milverton. But where the greatest oppor-
tunities for improvement in Government lie,
are in Colonial affairs. We really must
come, before long, to some definite principles
as to how we are to deal with our Colonies;
and in any change of Government, the
minister about whose appointment I feel
the most anxiety is the Minister for our
Colonial affairs. No father ever had a
more difficult problem put before him, when
he has growing-up boys to deal with, than
we have in the management of our Colonies.
It would be very hard upon England to be
dragged into an expensive war for any of
these Colonies.

Sir Arthur. On the other hand, it would
be very hard to desert them in the time of
need.

Milverton. How to reconcile, in a just
manner, these two lines of policy is, you
may depend upon it, the greatest question
of the present day.

Nobody seemed inclined to combat
this proposition. The ladies said it was
getting late; and so we ordered the car-
riages and returned to Worth-Ashton,
after a very pleasant day spent at the
little inn near the harbour, which, as we
left it, was overflowed by the full tide,
and, with the setting sun upon it, looked
most beautiful and attractive.

As we drove away, Ellesmere nudged
Milverton, and said, “ You see good
temper has come over the landscape, and
over us.” Then in a whisper, “ I assure
you I won’t break out again with Cran-
mer, whatever he may say tome. But
then, you know how I loved Dunsford ;
and I believe he was nearly as fond of
me as he was of you, though of course
your views always suited him better
than mine did. Poor dear man! What
a large bit of life the loss of such a man
takes out from us for ever! Yes, for
ever!”

To be continued,

12

11a

11+

A PLAIN VIEW OF RITUALISM.

BY FRANCIS T, PALGRAVE, LATE FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD.

Awmonc those arts which have been
recovered after long loss, has anyone
yet thought of including the art of
building churches? Public attention is
always called to discoveries in science
or art, and those who make or, utilize
an invention receive due notice and
honour; but at the present day it is
so natural a thing to see a new spire
rising in all populous districts, and so
easy to put one up, that perhaps it
hardly strikes anybcdy who is not
almost professionally familiar with the
history of English architecture, that all
these buildings are, in fact, examples of
what is even rarer than the advent of
a fresh art,—the recovery of a lost one.
Yet this is almost literally the case.
Some not very frequent or conspicuous
work was going on a hundred years ago
among our Nonconformists ; but a new
church seemed nearly as impossible a
thing to members of the Church of
England, as a new hundred to a county
magistrate. Population was in the full
tide of increase after the first century of
internal peace which England had
hitherto known. Manufacturing in-
dustry was beginning its immense career.
Cities were enlarging with a rapidity
which would have terrified James the
First. Moors hitherto left to grouse
and otters were turning into cities.
But a plain brick box, with square
windows and a square pigeon-house
over one end; inside; a series of uniform
painted deal packing-cases, one larger
than the rest in the middle ; wine-vaults
below, and houses on each side ;—such
was the ideal of the provision which
the pious of a church, rich enough
for more liberal things, though then
far from being the richest in Europe,
were satisfied to make. They were so
proud of the performance, that it seemed

to require a name of its own. It was
called a Proprietary Chapel.

There is no need to sketch the con-
trasted picture of the costly church of
our own time, or to quote facts in proof
of the facility with which it is now
provided. Much more has been done
within one generation than was done
during any period of similar length when
one-third of the whole country was in
ecclesiastical hands ; and if we set aside
the sentiment of antiquity, it may be
added, more beautifully and inventively
done. The number, according to recent
accounts, must exceed three thousand
within the last thirty years ; a similar
activity has been excited among the
Nonconformists of almost every kind ;
and in all cases the demand is for
further richness of structure and
elaborateness of decoration. Probably
it is as easy now to obtain 10,000/. to
spend on ecclesiastical architecture, as
it was to obtain 10/. a hundred years
ago. But churches are built for use.
And as the Proprietary chapel of 1767
is to the church of 1867, such is the
service. The “divine worship” of the
last century is— the “ Ritualism” of
this.

Undoubtedly a vast change is implied
in this multiplication and metamor-
phosis both of the building and of the
service. But, deferring for the moment
what may be said on the good and the
evil of it, must we not concede, whether
high church, low church, or no church,
that the change is in itself a perfectly
natural one? The plainest and cheapest
structure, and the fewest possible of
them, answered to the church-founding
ideas of the last century. Ever since
that period, the complaint that the
English ritual was dull and unatiractive,
has been one of the commonplaces of

A | a. lt in.

A Plain View of Ritualism.

conversation and of literature. A
praiseworthy effort to remedy this com-
plaint through the medium of increased
vivacity and vitality in the sermons,
was made by the “ Evangelical” party
of fifty years since. But this (may it
be said without offence?) broke down
through the inherent impossibility of
finding ten thousand men who, a
hundred times or more in a twelve-
month, could speak with the impres-
siveness of a great orator upon subjects
which, if the most important, are also
the most familiar that can be brought
before human ears. In place of the
hideous chapel we have now churches
by scores, which outstrip in expense
and often in beauty, the most expensive
and the most beautiful of those built in
the so-called “‘ Ages of Faith.” At first
the remarkable movement which led to
this revolution, appeared confined to
the wish to provide for what were then
named “ heathen populations.” Then it
appeared to limit itself to architectural
splendour. But it may be put to the
reader’s common sense and knowledge
of human nature, whatever his sym-
pathies, whether it was likely that the
revolution should stop here? Would it
not seem becoming that the service
should be made to correspond to the
structure? Was it not inevitable that
a man inducted fresh from Oxford or
Cambridge into a building all covered
with carving and colours, should try to
enliven the “dulness of the English
service” with music, processions, ban-
ners, lights, and the rest of a “ ritual-
istic” performance? His church,—nay,
his Nonconformistchapel,—is gorgeously
Gothic. By a sort of natural law, his
service becomes gorgeous and Gothic
also. The “Evangelical” service of 1867
would seem quite alarmingly Popish to
the Evangelical of 1827, could he by
some strange effort recall the Sunday
of his boyhood. There is many a
meeting-house of the present day, the
sight of which would be no less of a
shock to a Foxe or a Bunyan, than St.
Alban’s itself is to a Protestant visitor.
Let those who are surprised at or
dissent from this historical sketch re-

A Plain View of Ritualism.

LS

mark, further, that this change, so far
as we have hitherto examined it, is not
by any means confined to ecclesiastical
structures, furniture, or ceremonies. A
hundred years ago the English—rivals
in love of fine art at one time with the
best of the continental races — had
reached the lowest point of indifference
to beauty in all the applied or practical
fine arts. We had Reynolds and his
contemporaries ; but to all the decora-
tive arts of life that age was curiously
apathetic. Josiah Wedgwood is perhaps
the one great exception ; and (admirable
as what he did was) yet his higher
efforts were not only limited to works
in a Greek or Renaissance style, but
obtained their popularity among a class
who had a literary rather than a spon-
taneous appreciation of their beauty.
Without discussing what compensating
good existed in return for this deadness
to taste in common life (a curious in-
quiry which would here lead us too far),
it is certain that in almost every direc-
tion we have reversed the feeling of our
great-grandfathers. In place of brick,
and plainness, and Anglo-Grecian ef-
forts at external architecture, we have
Gothic and Italian, and brilliancy of
colour, and vivacity of form everywhere.
Enough has been already said of our
churches. Compare the architecture of
Scho Square and its neighbourhood,
the fashionable quarter of Dr. John-
son’s time, with the new streets on
the Grosvenor estate; compare the
old Montagu House in Whitehall with
the new; the Horseguards with the
Indian Court in Downing Street. If
we turn to interiors—although at all
times private wealth and taste have here
and there provided brilliant effects, yet
is it not notorious that art and forms of
beauty or brightness have now pene-
trated everywhere? The colours worn
are more varied ; the illustrations of |
books are multiplied ; a child for six-
pence gets a story with prints which no
money would have procured fifty years
since. The dethronement of the famous
“ willow-pattern” is a symbol of a na-
tional change in taste, which the Ma-
caulay of the future, should the future

117

evs See eee eee

116 A Plain
be fortunate enough to have one, will
not regard as below the notice of his-
torical dignity. Add the wonderful
popularization of music ; add our pala-
tial warehouses; add the multiplied
popular exhibitions of art: in a word,
without entering on the chapter of blun-
ders, or the question how far our taste
is improved, it is certain that the age
of plainness has given place, on all
these matters, to an age of display.

The foregoing particulars have been
put together, not because they are, in-
dividually, likely to be new to the
reader, but because, when we look at
them together in their historical se-
quence, they really explain the greater
part of what is now expressed by “ Ri-
tualism.” We know the details of our
own century so well that we often do
not perform the process for ourselves ;
we wait till the historian shall come and
join cause and effect in order for us. If
we attempt the work, even slightly, we
may obtain the great benefit which men
reap from the study of history—calm-
ness and sobriety of judgment. We
see that much of what seems strange or
undesirable is a simple reproduction of
past phases in human experience ; that
changes of taste follow like the seasons
by a regular process of action and reac-
tion; that novelty is transformed an-
tiquity, and that antiquity anticipates
to-day. We may learn also another
truth—that the great general changes
in taste or sentiment which we un-
consciously follow are precisely those
changes against which it is most hope-
less to contend ; we may moderate the
current by good sense and charity and
toleration—to turn it back is impossible.
It is not intended here to take any side
on the subject; the writer’s education
and sympathies (if, in the hope of en-
forcing his argument, he may so far
allude to himself) by no means lead him
to St. Alban’s : his wish is to bring satis-
factory proofs that the phenomenon
which so alarms or delights many, is
one to be regarded mainly, though not
exclusively, with simple acquiescence,
as the result of things neither alarming
nor obscure, but rather of a remarkable

"iew of Ritualism.

revolution in English taste, taking this
outlet for its gratification along with
many others. In a word, nine-tenths
of Ritualism are, in the strict sense,
simply matters of taste. This is impor-
tant and serious in its way, but that way
has little to do with religion. Ritualism,
in the far larger proportion of its dis-
play, is the reaction from plainness and
severity ; though not equally, it affects
all our theological parties, as the weather
works more on some constitutions than
others, but works somehow on all ; it
is no more a matter for angry strife or
passionate pleading than climatic varia-
tions, or the last fashion in dress. In a
gorgeous house propriety demands gor-
geous liveries.

Many excellent people simply look
at Ritualism in its extremest forms, and
are shocked, without trying to analyze
the movement, or inquiring into the
historical and secular antecedents which
enter so largely into it; and it is pro-
bable that the above conclusion will be
more distasteful to them, whilst the con-
troversy rages, than a strong opinion for
or against the ecclesiastical practice im
question. They will say, “ that serious
issues are involved in matters which
appear only external and trifling to a
spectator :” that “even a dress may be
a symbol of vital interests, though Gal-
lio cannot see it,” or that “ acquiescence
in the historical sequence of cause and
effect is a disguised and cowardly fatal-
ism.” Noris it to be denied or concealed
that there is some real, as well as much
plausible truth in such charges. Were
the subject not of some seriousness, it
would not deserve examination. Asa
matter of taste, Ritualism is important.
In its connexion with what we have
called the rediscovery of the art of
church-building, it is important. This,
which happened to be the first and natural
step to “ Ritualism,” is obviously a mat-
ter of no little significance ; but it lies be-
yond the space and object of this paper.
Ritualism, as an expression of taste, or
as immediately derived from the splen-
dour and style of our new and restored
churches, is not what excites popular
apprehension and clerical sympathy.

A Plain View of Ritualism.

On these grounds, no one has been
moved about it. There is, however,
another aspect of Ritualism which has
@ distinct doctrinal character, which is
at the bottom of the main controversy,
and on which a few words will presently
be added. Meanwhile, for the relief of
those who are strongly and conscien-
tiously moved, it is worth while reflect-
ing how many not less bitter controver-
sies, each supposed to be of similar
profundity and significance, have quietly
died out within the sphere of theology
alone. Practical opinion (at least in
England) buries the great controversies
of election, of predestination, of the fate
of unchristened children—nay (to take
a case more precisely analogous) those
bitter disputes about the organ north of
the Tweed, or the surplice south of it,
which have distracted so many house-
holds, and wounded so many hearts.
The remains of extinct species are hardly
more completely fossilized. For cha-
rity’s sake, let us at least be allowed to
express the hope that the same dust
may cover the relics of the ritualistic
controversy :

Motus animorum atque hee certamina
tanta !

It is only natural and right that excite-
ment should have been caused; the
English mind would have been very
dead to religious matters had it not
been so; but we should be on our guard
against overrating the importance of
dress and decoration. Nor are there
any so much interested in taking a just
view as those whose feelings are con-
scientiously roused against these novel-
ties. An adversary never gains more
than when his doings are exalted to a
“sensational” importance. The alarm
of one side always generates the con-
fidence of the other.

Nine-tenths of Ritualism have been
traced above to a change of taste in
regard to the applied fine arts, which is
not less secular than ecclesiastical, and
may be seen in shawls and gowns as
much as in stoles and tunicles. The

change is curious and important ; but,
as has been already observed, its import-

117

ance is not theological. A deeper and a
totally different origin and intention must,
however, be assigned to the remaining
portion. The desire to imitate the
variety and cvlour of the Roman
Catholic service, and the wish to ex-
press by appropriate and telling symbols
doctrines more or less approaching cer-
tain doctrines prominent in the teaching
of that church, cannot reasonably be
denied,— would often not be denied,—
by those who have carried “Ritualism ”
to its most marked development. It is,
of course, this element in Ritualism
which has moved the popular mind in
England. History proves with perfect
distinctness that that mind has at no
time accepted the claims or adopted the
sentiments of the Papal system, with
the devotion exhibited by the races of
“Latin” descent or Latin civilization.
Nor can those who persuade themselves
that any serious change in the Protestant
feeling of the country is probable, be
considered other than victims of a delu-
sion, which is most likely to influence
the most conscientious members of the
Roman church. It was hence, again,
natural that the strong feeling should
be roused by Ritualism which has ex-
pressed itself in Parliament. It cannot
be thought strange that the proscription
of the new ceremonial should have been
loudly demanded ; nor is it unnatural
(however unjust, from the point of view
here taken), that the popular wrath
should have included that far larger
portion of Ritualism which is simply
an expression of public taste, in the
general condemnation.

Whilst this element in the contro-
versy is fully allowed, there are, how-
ever, very powerful reasons which should
moderate the sensation roused. Admit
the occasional wish to “ get rid of the
dreariness of the Hanoverian Protestant
service,” and to make the English rites
as like the Roman as may decently be
managed. Admit the wish to symbolize
by ceremonies doctrines of a Roman
character. Admit that things seen are
more impressive than things heard, and
that an English Protestant congregation
may naturally be shocked and pained by

118

sights which they can hardly bear to
look at without immediate protest.
These feelings may be just, not less than
natural ; but into that side of the ques-
tion it is not needful here, to enter.
For it is hardly possible to deny that,
rightly or wrongly, the Roman doctrines
corresponding to these Roman rites have
been, for twenty years and more, openly
preached and published by many Eng-
lish clergymen, some of a certain dis-
tinction ; and that no attempt hitherto
made to prove such teaching absolutely
beyond the liberal bounds of what is
legally permitted has practically suc-
ceeded. The fact stands thus, whether
agreeable to the reader’s sense of what
should be, or not. Now, if this is so,
must it not be conceded that men may
show the doctrines they maintain by the
services they conduct? Their doctrines
would be but superficially held did they
not thus endeavour to show them. How-
ever invincibly averse the English mind
may be from the Roman theory of the
Eucharist and the Priesthood, natural
justice seems to require that if a man
may preach this theory within the pale
of a Protestant church, he may also act
it. It would be ridiculous on the face
of it to leave his tongue free, and devote
ourselves to simplifying his dress, or
fettering his gestures. But in truth it
would be worse than ridiculous; for
such constraint (whether based on fos-
silizing the form into which the ser-
vice had fallen, before Ritualism began,
under the name of “ prescription,” or on
new legislation) must inevitably bear
the look of persecution, and persecution
of that most mischievous kind which
meddles with externals, while it cannot
touch the points of vital moment. Nor
can one readily imagine a worse or more
unhealthy frame of mind than would be
generated by penal legislation of the
kind. Ritualists would fight for an
attitude or an altar-cloth as if it were
the palladium of their faith. Anti-
ritualists would put themselves in the
absurd and contradictory light of men
who, leaving the ceremonial or sacrificial
spirit untouched, wage war against its
dress and furniture. Evasions of the

A Plain View of Ritualism.

most provoking and puerile order would
be followed by lawsuits as provoking
and puerile. ‘The world outside would
laugh or be scandalized with good
reason. And what wise men would
think of the controversy, may be Jeft to
the reflections of the reader.

It is supposed here that the extreme
section of our Ritualists do not break
any actual law or canon in their cere-
monial, This point has yet to be
tested ; but the law of rites threatens
to prove even more vague and liberal
than that of doctrines ; and meanwhile
the Ritualists may fairly claim that, like
other Englishmen, they shall be pre-
sumed to be acting legally until the
reverse is proved. They may also, as
one of our bishops lately observed, witlr
a quiet impartiality which is the most
annoying and irresistible of arguments,
justly claim a strict rubrical obedience
from antagonists who have unconsciously
lapsed into neglect of the rubric to
which they are appealing.

But, whatever the exact legal position
may be, the foregoing considerations, if
valid, render it, in any case, highly in-
expedient to aim at a solution through
the courts. Even if Ritualism trans-
gresses the law, it would still be unde-
sirable to put the lawin force. For this
would again be to meddle with the dress,
and miss the doctrine. The attempt at
limitation by an appeal to prescription
or established custom is unmeaning as
well as unfair. When one asks what
“established custom” is to be thus
solely privileged, it immediately ap-
pears that the limit must be quite arbi-
trary. Is it to be the church-service
of 1730, or of 1830, or of 1845, or
which? And again, as rites always
have followed doctrines, what right or
power is there implicitly to limit doc-
trines to the ritual custom to be thus
selected and fossilized? And the same
reasons clearly hold good against the
stricter definition of allowable rites, or
the introduction of a new and less de-
monstrative ritual, which have been
also recently proposed. To bind the
hands, whilst the tongue is left free, is
neither sense nor justice.

A Plain View of Ritualism.

So far as the Ritualist Commission
and Parliament are concerned, the result
of these considerations points to mode-
ration on the part of those who are
alarmed and pained, however naturally
and conscientiously, by the movement.
Let us briefly sum them up. The
powerful underlying element in it, and
that which really holds by far the largest
share in its manifestations, is simply
and purely a matter of taste, and only
the ecclesiastical side of a change
which is gradually pervading the com-
mon life and secular habits of the
country. It has but the real (though
imperfectly understood) importance
which belongs to matters of taste ; but
in that importance there is nothing
specially theological. The remaining
element, though strongly and avowedly
such, does not appear to transcend the
limits of what have hitherto been proved
to be the doctrinal possibilities of the
Church of England. It is simply the
outward expression of convictions which
members of that church are permitted
to maintain and assert. As such,—
whilst the convictions are legally ten-
able,—even extreme Ritualism demands
toleration. That ceremonies should not
be free to conform to doctrines—the
symbol to the thing symbolized —
would be a puerile and an untenable
position. If any change is to be made,
—a point on which no judgment is here
attempted,—it must be a change alto-
gether. Rites must stand or fall with
doctrines.

This result will appear very weak
and unsatisfactory to many excellent
people, whose peace of mind has been
broken just where peace is most valued,
by the sight of practices which revolt
them, and by the sensational narratives
of Ritualistic performances which en-
liven the papers, whilst the Emperor is
not making a new blunder, or the Count
re-arranging Europe. It will be hardly
more satisfactory to those who, with
equal good faith, ascribe great value to
the present fashion of church services,
or (in some cases) are under the belief
that the crowds at St. Alban’s indicate a
gradual but sure reversion of the Eng-

119

lish mind towards a medizval Chris-
tianity. They will repudiate the reduc-
tion of so much in Ritualism to “mere
matter of taste,” and that a taste not
exclusively ecclesiastical. They will
quote well-filled churches, and other
proofs of religious activity, to support
their faith in the progress of the people
to their form of orthodoxy. Such con-
clusions are natural and inevitable —
till we look at the question in the calm
light of its history, and with an im-
partial tenderness to the consciences of
those from whom we differ. But a few
results of the preceding argument may be
added, in the hope that, as they are not
so likely to be disputed, they may serve,
in some slight degree, to allay the agita-
tion which Ritualism has aroused among
its defenders and its antagonists alike.
Supposing that the policy of non-
intervention here advocated be the one
—as, after all, in this country is not im-
probable—ultimately pursued ; we may
find some grounds for anticipating that
the movement will shortly present itself
in a moderate form. If in a very large
measure it may be reduced to a matter
of general taste, experience, especially
in England, may assure us that the taste
for splendour and decoration will be,
at no distant time, followed by a reaction
in favour of plainness and severity.
Indeed, if we may diverge from the
narrow subject of this paper into larger
political fields, causes are already at
work which at least point in this direc-
tion. Our recent love of display has
rested in no small measure on the im-
mense and rapid increase in national
wealth. This increase has rested, again,
partly on the energy of our capitalists
and workmen, partly on the fact that
we have till lately been the chief
manufacturers of those common things
which are incomparably the greatest
sources of wealth, for western Europe
and for America. Dut we can hardly
avoid recognizing symptoms, especially
within the last two years, which render
it probable or possible that this immense
increase may not be maintained. Even
were we, not warned by all history that
no nation long keeps its pre-eminence

A Plain View of Ritualism.

in any point of superiority, (purely in-
tellectual superiority perhaps excepted), it
would be self-deceit not to note a growing
rivalry abroad, as each nation learns in-
evitably to do for itself what we once
did for it ; a want of confidence and tone
in our employing classes ; even, perhaps,
a loss in our position, as men of mind and
trustworthiness. Without entering here
on the proof of these statements, or of
the larger causes on which this depres-
sion partly depends, it may be enough
to draw the inference that we should
not unhesitatingly look forward to a
perpetuity of doubling our national in-
come every twenty or thirty years.
Judging by history, it is not rash to
conjecture that we may be near—
that we may have even passed—the
zenith of prosperity allotted to us
during the nineteenth century. And,
if this be so, one of the earliest con-
sequences will probably be, a reduction
of our free expenditure on the decora-
tive or gorgeous side of life. Art has

never been the first love of England.

Another equally plain and prosaic
reason to expect moderation in Ritualism,
lies in the fact that one main object of
its promoters is the laudable object of
filling their churches or chapels, by a
more lively and interesting style of
service. Nor can it fairly be denied,
that (putting the extreme section by)
the buildings where service is performed
to good music, ina stately way, and with
the accompaniment of lights and colours,
do generally succeed in attractiveness,!

1 It is not here assumed that this is an
advance ; with what seems rational or religious
in a good sense, it may also connote one phase
of that materialism which is the prevailing
tone of the time in several directions ; in the
attitude of physical science; in the exagge-
rated reliance upon tangible facts ; and in the
coarse and violent counsels so common in our
politics and our literature. These considera-
tions may suggest some of the wider bearings
of ‘‘Ritualism.” All human controversies
have a great as well as a little side ; opening
avenues, notwithstanding their ostensible nar-
rowness, into vast and hardly soluble ques-
tions, as whenever we look up, our eyes always
run into the infinite. But the little side,
which is almost always that belonging to the
matter of controversy itself, is generally the
only one in prominent view.

The new forms of public worship un-
mistakeably fall in with the present
popular taste ; Ritualism, in this larger
sense, is gradually pervading the country,
and readers may easily find examples of
it within walls where episcopacy meets
with no favour. But it is obvious, from
the very excitement for which it is the
wish of the writer to point out lenitives,
that the strongly or Romanistically pro-
nounced mode of service arouses a vast
and general dislike. It is hence nota
rash inference that those who wish to
attract congregations by ceremonialism,
when left to themselves, will drop what
offends and empties the churches they
wish to fill. If not, it is surely equally
obvious that their congregations will
retaliate by simply leaving them. The
remedy is in the hands of the objectors.
Is it not enough to remark that this is
hardly a country where one can imagine
reluctant crowds faithfully attending a
service from which they have a con-
scientious aversion ?

Before, however, matters reach this
stage in any place, there will be much
offence given, horror excited, and every
feeling roused but those which people
should take to church with them. Some
persons will always be found whose
convictions lead them to ceremonies, as
they lead them to sermons, of a strongly
anti-Protestant character. But it may
be observed, that if the attempt to limit
Ritualism by main force be abandoned,
there is then a better chance that these
advanced or extreme thinkers will be
more ready to listen to the moderating
voice of ecclesiastical or lay authorities.
Indeed, there is a voice within them,
which (as with all men) they are most
likely to hear when the noise of antago-
nist controversy has lulled: nor does it
seem fanciful to anticipate that the dis-
covery will be made, that not to offend
those who are considered weaker
brethren, and to do things decently and
in order, are duties paramount to the
very strongest impulse towards pictures,
incense, elevations, and genuflexions.

Lastly, a more general reflection must
not be omitted, which may serve to lift
the subject to a higher region than the

A Plain View of Ritualism.

somewhat unspiritual and narrow pre-
cincts of Ritualism. In an age which
would deserve the censures passed on it
by grumblers and theorists, were it not
critical and inquiring, sceptical and self-
conscious, cries of alarm or of satisfac-
tion are constantly raised, that faith is
dead or dying, Christianity about to
disappear, and the like. As there is a
Scottish theologian famous for fixing the
end of the world within the next ten
years, so there are many able philo-
sophers who, with equal confidence and
good faith, announce a rapid extinction
of the creed of Christendom. Those
who believe in that creed may, indeed,
wisely learn from thoughtful antagonists
that if it ceases to preserve its hitherto
progressive character, and to adapt its
expression and aims to the new exi-
gencies of modern life, the spirit may
depart from it. Treasures may be more
surely lost by burying them than by
spending them. Meanwhile, however (to
drop matters greater than the subject of
this paper), looking again at the present
rather than the dim future of civiliza-
tion, the world goes on, and a new lease,
for the last time, has to be granted to
it and to Christianity alike by the fol-
lowers of Cumming and the followers of
Comte. Each successive prophecy of
final catastrophe is issued with undi-
minished confidence at the date which
should have marked the fulfilment of
the former. But, abandoning the sterile
field of theological or scientific predic-
tion, and confining our view for brevity’s
sake to England, whatever weak points
may exist in English theology, theo-
retical, and practical ; whatever indif-
ference and hesitation may lie beneath
outward conformity and ceremonialism ;
whatever intellectual blindness to the
demands of the age, critical and scientific,
may be urged against ecclesiastical
leaders, whether in the English Church
or among Nonconformists (points upon
which readers will differ very widely),
it is at least highly probable that the
enormous increase in the activity of all
Christian ministers and organized bodies,
. few fading sects excepted, carrying
with it an immense expenditure of that

121

which in England is rarely given except
under real conviction, implies some cor-
responding increase in the present reli-
gious faith of the country. To doubt
this is indeed a high point of scep-
ticism. A man must have immense
confidence in his own theory, or immense
indifference to what goes on about him,
to set aside the evidences of the religious
energy of the last fifty years. We see a
practical proof of this every day in the
conduct of our most sagacious states-
men; we have each of us to acknow-
ledge it in turn (whatever our individual
opinions) whenever any question is
raised which in any vital sense touches
on the doctrine or practice of a reli-
gious body. Those points of weakness,
apathy, scepticism, and intellectual
blindness, just alluded to as noticeable
among us, are points familiar to the
student who has approached his subject
with an open mind, in love neither
with theological nor with scientific
theories, at every century of ecclesias-
tical history ; they change their colour,
but their essential nature now is what
it was a thousand years ago: they are
among the limitations of “poor hu-
manity.”!_ The Church, as one has

1 In proof of what is here advanced, and as
an example of the moderating influence which
history, fairly studied, may exert in allaying
the causeless panics or unfounded anticipa-
tions to which the mind, educated only in the
present, is often subject, two passages, each
written by men of unusual sense and observa-
tion, about a century and a half since, may be
subjoined. They suggest the narrow circle
within which our ideas move; they may sug-
gest also a reasonable confidence to those who
are distressed by two classes of alarm widely
prevalent among us. The first is from Daniel
de Foe. He is speaking of a ‘*Schism Bill”
brought in by Lord Bolingbroke.

“Who are they that at this juncture are
clamorous against Dissenters, and are eagerly
soliciting for a further security to the Church ?
Are they not that part of the clergy who have
already made manifest advances towards the
synagogue of Rome? they who preach the in-
dependency of the Church on the State? who
urge the necessity of auricular confession,
sacerdotal absolution, extreme unction, and
prayer for the dead? who expressly teach the
real presence in the Lord’s Supper, which they
will have to be a proper sacrifice ?”

Except the phrase ‘‘synagogue of Rome,”
might not this have been an extract from yester-

a es

122 A Soul in Prison.

said, “has seen many latter days:” it
is as easy to prophesy her fall as her
triumph ; it is perhaps even not more
unprofitable. If we look upon past and
present with equal eyes, accepting facts
without attempting to distort them into
doctrines, or pervert them into predic-
tion, it is possible that a sane judgment
might rather prefer to call this the “Age
of Faith” (a title which, however, leaves
much to be desired) than those which
generally bear the name.

It may be enough here to suggest, as
one element in a judgment from which
many readers will be inclined to dissent
without examination, the vast extension
of the European races, and especially
of our own ; apparently destined, unless
some singular catastrophe should occur,
day’s ‘* Record” ? Turn now to Bishop Butler.
His anxiety is in an opposite direction.

“It is come, I know not how, to be taken
for granted by many persons, that Christianity
is not so much as a subject for inquiry ; but
that it is, now at length, discovered to be
fictitious. And accordingly they treat it, as
if, in the present age, this were an agreed
point among all people of discernment, and
nothing remained, but to set it up as a prin-
cipal subject of mirth and ridicule.”

Historical students could hardly do a more
valuable or a more interesting work than by
collecting, in sequence of date, passages show-
ing the chronic recurrence of certain com-
plaints and panies, which have appeared
amongst the civilized races from the very
beginning of conscious civilization.

within one century, to equal or ex-
ceed any other single family upon earth
in number. The Christianity which
these nations will carry with them will,
doubtless, have a colour of its own, and
one different from that which we are
familiar with; but it is certain that
what they now mean to carry with them
is Christianity. From this aspect even
the comparatively petty question of
Ritualism gains importance. This paper,
which aims at allaying the heat and
anger generated by the controversy, is
itself an acknowledgment how deep and
strong those convictions are, without
which the controversy would not have
been excited.

Let us close the discussion with Mr.
M. Arnold’s fine and thoughtful words :—

Children of men! the unseen Power, whos

eye :

For ever doth gmc. 0 A mankind,

Hath look’d on no religion scornfully
That ever man did find.

Which has not taught weak wills how much
they can? 7
Which has not fall’n on the dry heart like
rain ?
Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man,
Thou imust be born again!

Children of men! not that your age excel
In pride of life the ages of your sires,
But that you think clear, feel deep, bear fruit
well,
The Friend of man desires.

A SOUL IN PRISON,

(The Doubter luys aside his book.)

“ Answered a score of times.” Oh, looked-for teacher,
Is this all you will teach me? I in the dark

Kteaching my hand for you to help me forth

To the happy sunshine where you stand, “Oh shame,
To be in the dark there prisoned!” answer you;
“There are ledges somewhere there by which strong feet

Might scale to daylight.

I would lift you out

With just a touch, but that your need’s so slight.

There are ledges somewhere.’

Think I’ve found footing

om

,

And I grope and strain,

and slip baftled back,

Slip, maybe, deeper downwards. “Oh, my guide,
Say at least

I find no ledges. Help me.

A Soul in Prison.

Where they are placed, that I may know to seek.”
But you, in anger, “ Nay, wild wilful soul,
Thou wilt rot in the dark, God’s sunshine here
At thy prison’s very lip. Blame not the guide:
Have I not told thee there is footing for thee?”
And so you leave me, and with even tread
Guide men along the highway... where, I think,
They need you less.
Say ’twas my wanton haste
Or my drowsed languor, my too earthward eyes
Watching for hedge flowers, or my too rapt gaze
At the mock sunshine of a sky-born cloud,
That led me, blindling, here: say the black walls
Grew round me while I slept, or that I built
With ignorant hands a temple for my soul
To pray in to herself, and that, for want
Of a window heavenwards, a loathsome night
Of mildew and decay festered upon it,
Till the rotted pillars fell and tombed me in:
Let it so be my fault, whichever way,
Must I be left to die? A murderer
Is helped by holy hands to the byway road
That comes at God through shame; a thief is helped ;
A harlot; a sleek cozener that prays,
Swindles his customers and gives God thanks,
And so to bed with prayers. Let them repent,
Nay let them not repent, you'll say, “ These souls
May yet be saved, and make a joy in heaven.”
You are thankful you have found them, you whose charge
Is healing sin: but I, hundreds as IJ,
Whose sorrow ’tis only to long to know,
And know too plainly that we know not yet,
We are beyond your mercies. You pass by
And note the moral of our fate: ‘twill point
A Sunday’s sermon... for we have our use,
Boggarts to placid Christians in their pews—
“Question not, prove not, lest you grow like these.”
And then you tell them how we daze ourselves
On problems now so many times resolved
That you'll not re-resolve them, how we crave
New proofs, as once an evil race desired
New signs and could not see, for stubbornness,
Signs given already.
Proofs enough, you say,
Quote precedent, “Hear Moses and the prophets.”
1 know the answer given across the gulf,
3ut I know too what Christ did. There were proofs,
Enough for John and Peter, yet He taught
New proofs and meanings to those doubting two
Who sorrowing walked forth to Emmaus
And came back joyful.:
“They,” you'd answer me,
If you owned my instance, “sorrowed in their doubt,
And did not wholly doubt, and loved.”

A Soul in Prison.

Oh, men

That read the age’s heart in library books
Whit by our fathers, this is how you know it.
Do we say, “The old faith is obsolete ;
The world wags all the better, let us laugh.”
We of to-day? Why will you not divine
The fathomless sorrow of doubt? Why not divine
The yearning to be lost from it in love?
And who doubts wholly? That were not to doubt.
Doubt’s to be ignorant, not to deny:
Doubt’s to be wistful after perfect faith.
You will not think that. You come not to us
To ask of us who know doubt what doubt is,
But one by one you pass the echoes on,
Each of his own pulpit, each of all the pulpits,
And in the swelling sound can never catch
The tremulous voice of doubt that wails in the cold:
You make sham thunder for it, outpeal that
With your own better thunders.

You wise man
And worthy, utter honest in your will,
I love you and I trust you ; so I thought
**Here’s one whose love keeps measure to belief
With onward vigorous feet, one quick of sight
To catch the clue in scholars’ puzzle-knots,
Deft to unweave the coil to one straight thread,
One strong to grapple vague Protean faith
And keep her to his heart in one fixed shape
And living: he comes forward in his strength
as to a battlefield to answer challenge,
As in a storm to buffet with the waves
For shipwrecked men clutching the frothy crests
And sinking: he is stalwart on my side—
Mine, who, untrained and weaponless, have warred
At the powers of unbelief, and am borne down ;
Mine, who am struggling in the sea for breath.”
I looked to you as the sick man in his pain
Looks to the doctor whose sharp medicines
Have the taste of health behind them, looked to you
For—— Well, for a boon different from this.
My doctor tells me, “Why, quite long ago
They knew your fever (or one very like) :
And they knew remedies, you'll find them named
Jn many ancient writers ; let those serve.”
And “Thick on the commons, by the daily roads,
The herbs are growing that give instant strength
To palsied limbs like yours, clear such filmed sight.
You need but eyes to spy them, hands to uproot,
That’s all.”

All, truly.

Strong accustomed eyes,
Strong tutored hands, see for me, reach for me!
But there’s a cry like mine rings through the world,
And no help comes. And with slow severing rasp

A Soul in Prison.

At our very heart-roots the toothed question grates,
“Do these who know most not know anything?”

Oh, teachers, will you teach us? Growing, growing,
Like the great river made of little brooks,

Our once unrest swells to a smooth despair:

Stop us those little brooks ; yon say you can.

Oh, teachers, teach us, you who*have been taught ;
Learn for us, you who have learned how to learn.
We, jostling, jostled, through the market world
Where our work lies, lack breathing space, lack calm,
Lack skill, lack tools, lack heart, lack everything
For your work of the studies. Such roughed minds
We bring to it as when the ploughman tries

His hard unpliant fingers at the pen ;

So toil and smudge, then put the blurred scrawl by,
Unfinished, till next holiday comes round.

Thus maybe I shall die and the blurred scrawl

Be still unfinished where I try to write

Some clear belief, enough to get by heart.

Die still in the dark! Die having lived in the dark!
There’s a sort of creeping horror thinking that.
’Tis hard too, for I yearned for light, grew dazed,
Not by my sight’s unuse and choice of gloom,
But by too bold a gazing at the sun,
Thinking to apprehend his perfect light
Not darkly through a glass.

Too bold, too bold.
Would I had been appeased with the earth’s wont
Of helpful daily sunbeams bringing down
Only so much Heaven’s light as may be borne—
Heaven’s light enough for many a better man
To see his God by. Well, but it is done:
Never in any day shall I now be
As if I had not gazed and seen strange lights
Swim amid darknesses against the sky.
Never; and, when I dream as if I saw,
*Tis dreaming of the sun, and, when I yearn
In agony to see, still do I yearn,
Not for the sight I had in happier days,
But for the eagle’s strong gaze at the sun.

Ah, well! that’s after death, if all be true.
Nay, but for me, never, if all be true.
I love not God, because I know Him not,
I do but long to love Him—long and long
With an ineffable great pain of void ;—
I cannot say I love Him: that not said,
They of the creeds all tell me I am barred
From the very hope of knowing.

Maybe so ;
For daily I know less. "Tis the old tale
Of men lost in the mouldy vaults of mines

A Soul in Prison.

Or dank crypt cemeteries—lamp puffed out,
(iuides, comrades, out of hearing, on and on
Groping and pushing he makes farther way
From his goal of, open daylight. Best to wait
Till some one come to seck him. But the strain
Of such a patience !—and “if no one comes!”
He cannot wait.
If one could hear a voice,
“Not yet, not yet: myself have still to find
What way to guide you forth, but I seek well,
I have the lamp you lack, I have a chart :
Not yet; but hope.” So might one strongly bear
Through the long night, attend with harkening breath
For the next word, stir not but as it bade.
Who will so cry to us?
P Or is it true
You could come to us, guide us, but you will not?
You say it, and not we, teachers of faith ;
Must we believe you? Shall we not more think
Our doubt is consciousness of ignorance,
Your faith unconsciousness of ignorance ;
So you know less than we?
My author here,
Honest at heart, but has your mind a warp—
The zealot’s warp, who takes believed for proved ;
The disciple’s warp, who takes all heard for proved ;

The teacher's warp, who takes all taught for proved,
And cannot think “I know not?” Do you move
One stumbling-block that bars out souls from Heaven?
Your back to it, you say, “I see no stone.

“Lis a fool’s dream, an enemy’s false tale

To hinder passengers.” And I who lean

Broken against the stone ?

Well, learned man,
I thank you for your book. ‘Tis eloquent,
Tis subtle, resolute; I like the roar
Of the big battling phrases, like those frets
Of hissing irony—a book to read.
It helps one too—a sort of evidence—
‘lo see so strong a mind so strongly clasped
To creeds whose truth one hopes. What would I more ?
*Tis a dark world, and no man lights another:
"Tis a dark world, and no man sees so plain
As he believes he sees... excepting those
Who are mere blind and know it.

Here’s a man
Thinks his eyes’ stretch can plainly scan out God,
And cannot plainly scau his neighbour's face—
He'll make you a hobgoblin, hoofs and horns,
Of a poor cripple shivering at his door
Begging a bit of food.
We get no food ;

Stones, stones: but then he but half sees, he trows
Tis honest bread he gives us.

The Chaplet of Pearls ; or, The White and Black Ribaumont. 127

A blind world.

Light! light! oh God, whose other name is Light,

If

Ay, ay, always if Thought’s cursed with is.
Well, where’s my book ?—No “ifs” in that, I think.
A readable shrewd book; twill win the critics.

Avucusta WEBSTER.

THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS;
OR, THE WHITE AND BLACK RIBAUMONT,

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.”

CHAPTER V.
THE CONVENT BIRD.

** Young knight, whatever that dost armes
professe,
And through long labours huntest after

fame,
Beware of fraud, beware of ficklenesse,
In choice and chaunge of thy beloved dame.”
Spenser, Faéry Queene.

Berencer’s mind was relieved, even
while his vanity was mortified, when
the Chevalier and his son came the next
day to bring him the formal letter re-
questing the Pope’s annulment of his
marriage. After he had signed it, it was
to be taken to Eustacie, and, so soon as
he should attain his twenty-first year
he was to dispose of Chateau Leurre, as
well as of his claim to the ancestral
castle in Picardy, to his cousin Narcisse,
and thus become entirely free to transfer
his allegiance to the Queen of England.
It was a very good thing—that he
well knew; and he had a strong sense
of virtue and obedience, as he formed
with his pen the words in all their full-
ness, Henri Béranger Eustache, Baron
de Ribaumont et Seigneur de Leurre.
He could not help wondering whether
the lady who looked at him so admir-
ingly really preferred such a mean-look-
ing little fop as Narcisse, whether she
were afraid of his English home and
breeding, or whether all this open co-
quetry were really the court manners of
No. 98.—vol. xvi.

ladies towards gentlemen, and he had
been an absolute simpleton to be flat-
tered. Any way, she would have been
a most undesirable wife, and he was well
quit of her; but he did feel a certain
lurking desire that, since the bonds were
cut and he was no longer in danger from
her, he might see her again, carry home
a mental inventory of the splendid
beauties he had renounced, and decide
what was the motive that actuated her
in rejecting his own handsome self.
Meantime, he proceeded to enjoy the
amusements and advantages of his so-
journ at Paris, of which by no means the
least was the society of Philip Sidney,
and the charm his brilliant genius im-
parted to every pursuit they shared.
Books at the University, fencing and
dancing from the best professors, Italian
poetry, French sonnets, Latin epigrams ;
nothing came amiss to Sidney, the flower
of English youth: and Berenger had taste,
intelligence, and cultivation enough to
enter into all in which Sidney led the
way. The good tutor, after all his mi-
series on the journey, was delighted to
write to Lord Walwyn, that, far from
being a risk and temptation, this visit
was a school in all that was virtuous and
comely.

If the good man had any cause of
dissatisfaction. it was with the Calvin-
istic tendencies of the Ambassador's
household. Walsingham was always on
the Puritanical side of Elisabeth’s court,
and such an atmosphere as that of Paris,

K

. The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

where the Roman Catholic system was
at that time showing more corruption
than it has ever done before or since in
any other place, naturally threw him
into sympathy with the Reformed. The
reaction that half a century later filled
the Gallican Church with saintliness had
not set in; her ecclesiastics were the
tools of a wicked and bloodthirsty court,
who hated virtue as much as schism in
the men whom they persecuted. The
Huguenots were for the most part men
whose instincts for truth and virtue had
recoiled from the popular system, and
thus it was indeed as if piety and mo-
rality were arrayed on one side, and
superstition and debauchery on the other.
Mr. Adderley thus found the tone of the
ambassador's chaplain that of far more
complete fellowship with the Reformed
pastors than he himself was disposed to
admit. There were a large number of
these gathered at Paris ; for the lull in
persecution that had followed the battle
of Moncontour had given hopes of a
final accommodation between the two
parties, and many had come up to con-
sult with the numerous lay nobility who
had congregated to witness the King of
Navarre’s wedding. Among them, Be-
renger met his father’s old friend, Isaac
Gardon, who had come to Paris for the
purpose of giving his only surviving son
in marriage to the daughter of a watch-
maker to whom he had for many years
been betrothed. By him the youth, with
his innocent face and gracious respectful
manners, was watched with delight, as
fulfilling the fairest hopes of the poor
Baron, but the old minister would have
been sorely disappointed had he known
how little Berenger felt inclined towards
his party.

The royal one of course Berenger could
not love, but the rigid bareness, and, as he
thought, irreverence of the Calvinist, and
the want of all forms, jarred upon one
used to a ritual which retained much of
the ancient form. In the early years of
Elizabeth, every possible diversity pre-
vailed in parish churches, according to
the predilections of rector and squire ;
from forms scarcely altered from those of
old times, down to the baldest, rudest

neglect of all rites; and Berenger, in his
country home, had been used to the
first extreme. He could not believe that
what he heard and saw among the Sacré-
mentaires, as they were called, was what
his father had prized ; and he greatly
scandalised Sidney, the pupil of Hubert
Languet, by openly expressing his dis-
taste and dismay when he found their
worship viewed by both Walsingham
and Sidney as a model to which the
English Protestants ought to be brought.

However, Sidney excused all this as
mere boyish distaste to sermons and love
of externals, and Berenger himself re-
flected little on the subject. The aspect
of the venerable Coligny, his father’s
friend, did far more to mike him a
Huguenot thanany discussion of doctrine.
The good old Admiral received him
affectionately, and talked to him warmly
of his father, and the grave, noble
countenance and kind manner won his
heart. Great projects were on foot,
and were much relished by the young
King, for raising an army and striking a
blow at Spain by aiding the Reformed
in the Netherlands ; and Coligny was
as ardent as a youth in the cause, hoping
at once to aid his brethren, to free the
young King from evil influences, and to
strike one good stroke against the old
national enemy. He talked eagerly to
Sidney of alliances with England, and
then lamented over the loss of so pro-
mising a youth as young Ribaumont to
the Reformed cause in France. If the
marriage with the heiress could have
taken effect, he would have obtained
estates near enough to some of the main
Huguenot strongholds to be very im-
portant, and these would now remain
under the power of Narcisse de Ribau-
mont, a determined ally of the Guise fac-
tion. It was a pity, but the Admiral could
not blame the youth for obeying the
wish of his guardian grandfather ; and he
owned, with a sigh, that England was
a more peaceful land than his own be-
loved country. Berenger was a little
nettled at this implication, and began
to talk of joining the French standard
in a campaign in the Netherlands: but
when the two young men returned.

to their present home and described the
conversation, Walsingham said,—

“The Admiral’s favourite project !
He would do wisely not to brag of it so
openly. The King of Spain has too
many in his interest in this place not to
be warned, and to be thus further egged
on to compass the ruin of Coligny.”

“ Tshould have thought,” said Sidney,
“that nothing could add to his hatred
of the Reformed.”

“ Scarcely,” said Walsingham ; “save
that it is they who hinder the Duke
of Guise from being a good Frenchman,
and a foe to Spain.”

Politics had not developed themselves
in Berenger’s mind, and he listened
inattentively while Walsingham talked
over with Sidney the state of parties in
France, where natural national enmity
to Spain was balanced by the need felt
by the Queen-mother of the support of
that great Roman Catholic power against
the Huguenots ; whom Walsingham be-
lieved her to dread and hate less for
their own sake than from the fear of loss
of influence over her son. He believed
Charles IX. himself to have much lean-
ing towards the Reformed, but the
late victories had thrown the whole
court entirely into the power of the
Guises, the truly unscrupulous partisans
of Rome. They were further inflamed
against the Huguenots by the assassina-
tion of the last Duke of Guise, and by
the violences that had been committed
by some of the Reformed party, in
especial a massacre of prisoners at Nérae.

Sidney exclaimed that the Huguenots
had suffered far worse cruelties.

“That is true,” replied Sir Francis,
“but, my young friend, you will find,
in all matters of reprisals, that a party
has no memory for what it may commit,
only for what it may receive.”

The conversation was interrupted by
an invitation to the ambassador's family
and guests to a tilting-mateh and subse-
quent ball at the Louvre. In the first
Berenger did his part with credit; to
the second he went feeling full of that
strange attraction of repulsion. He

knew gentlemen enough: in Coligny’s
suite for it to be likely that he might

The White and Black Ribaumont.

129

remain unperceived among them, and he
knew this would be prudent, but he
found himself unexpectedly near the
ranks of ladies, and smile and gesture
absolutely drew him towards his semi-
spouse, so that he had no alternative
but to lead her out to dance.

The stately measure was trod in silence
as usual, but he felt the dark eyes study-
ing him all the time. However, he could
bear it better now that the deed was
done, and she had voluntarily made him
less to her than any gallant parading or
mincing about the room.

“So you bear the pearls, Sir?” she
said, as the dance finished.

“ The only heirloom I shall take with
me,” he said.

“Ts a look at them too great a favour
to ask from their jealous guardian ?”
she asked.

He smiled, half ashamed of his own
annoyance at being obliged to place them
in her hands. He was sure she would
try to cajole him out of them, and by
way of asserting his property in them
he did not detach them from the band
of his black velvet cap, but gave it with
them into her hand. She looked at
each one, and counted them wistfully.

‘* Seventeen!” she said; “and how
beautiful! I never saw them so near
before. They are so becoming to that
fair cheek that I suppose no offer from
my—my uncle, on our behalf, would in-
duce you to part with them ?”

An impulse of open-handed gallantry
would have made him answer, “No
offer from your uncle, but a simple re-
quest from you ;” but he thought in time
of the absurdity of returning without
them, and merely answered, “I have no
right to yield them, fair lady. They
are the witness to my forefather’s fame
and prowess.”

“Yes, Sir, and to those of mine also,”
she replied. “ And you would take them
over to the enemy from whom that
prowess extorted them ?”

“The country which honoured and re-
warded that prowess!” replied Berenger.

She looked at him with an interroga-
tive glance of surprise at the readiness
of his answer; then, with half a sigh,

K 2

said, “ There are your pearls, Sir ; I can-
not establish our right, though J verily
believe it was the cause of our last
quarrel ;” and she smiled archly.

“T believe it was,” he said gravely ; but
added, in the moment of relief at re-
covering the precious heirloom, “ though
it was Diane who inspired you to seize
upon them.”

“ Ah! poor Diane ! you sometimes re-
member her then? If I remember
right, you used to agree with her better
than with your little spouse, cousin !”

“ Tf I quarrelled with her less, I liked
her less,” answered Berenger—who, since
the act of separation, had not been so
guarded in his demeanour, and began
to give way to his natural frankness.

“Indeed? Diane would be less grati-
fied than I ought to be. And why, may
Task?”

“Diane was more caressing, but she
had no truth.”

“Truth! that was what few M. le
Baron ever talked of ; what Huguenots
weary one with.”

“And the only thing worth seeking,
the real pearl,” said Berenger, “ without
which all else is worthless.”

“Ah!” she said, “who would have
thought that soft, youthful face could be
so severe! You would never forgive a
deceit #”

“ Never,” he said, with the crystal
hardness of youth ; “ or rather, I might
forgive ; I could never esteem.”

“ What a bare, rude world yours must
be,” she said, shivering. ‘ And no weak
ones in it! Only the strong can dare to
be true.”

“Truth is strength!” said Berenger.
“For example: I see yonder a face
without bodily strength, perhaps, but
with perfect candour.”

“ Ah! some Huguenot girl of Madame
Catherine’s, no doubt—from the depths
of Languedoc, and dressed like a fright.”

“No, no; the young girl behind the
pale, yellow-haired lady.”

“* Comment, Monsieur. Do you not
yet know the young Queen ?”

“ But who is the young demoiselle !—
she with the superb black eyes, and the
ruby rose in her black hair?”

The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

“Take care, Sir, do you not know I
have still a right to be jealous?” she
said, blushing, bridling, and laughing.

But this pull on the cords made him
the more resolved; he would not be
turned from his purpose. “ Who is
she?” he repeated, “have I ever seen
her before? Iam sure I remember that
innocent look of espiéglerie.”

“You may see it on any child’s face
fresh out of the convent; it does not
last a month!” was the still displeased,
rather jealous answer. “ That little
thing—lI believe they call her Nidemerle
—she has only just been brought from
her nunnery to wait on the young
Queen. Ah! your gaze was perilous, it
is bringing on you one of the jests of
Madame Marguerite.”

With laughter and gaiety, a troop of
gentlemen descended on M. de Ribau-
mont, and told him that Madame Mar-
guerite desired that he should be pre-
sented to her. The princess was stand-
ing by her pale sister-in-law, Elizabeth
of Austria, who looked grave and an-
noyed at the mischievous mirth flashing
in Marguerite’s dark eyes.

“M. de Ribaumont,” said the latter,
her very neck heaving with suppressed
fun, “I see I cannot do you a greater
favour than by giving you Mademoiselle ,
de Nidemerle for your partner.”

Berenger was covered with confusion
to find that he had been guilty of such
a fixed stare as to bring all this upon the
poor girl He feared that his vague
sense of recognition had made his gaze
more open than he knew, and he was
really and deeply ashamed of this as his
worst act of provincial ill-breeding.

Poor little convent maid, with crimson
cheeks, flashing eyes, panting bosom,
and a neck evidently aching with proud
dignity and passion, she received his
low bow with a sweeping curtsey, as
lofty as her little person would permit.

His cheeks burnt like fire, and he
would have found words to apologize,
but she cut him short by saying, hastily
and low, “ Not a word, Monsieur! Let
us go through it at once. No one shall
make game of us.”

He hardly durst look at her again;

ee wa we”

but as he went through his own elabo-
rate paces he knew that the little crea-
ture opposite was swimming, bending,
turning, bounding with the fluttering
fierceness of an angry little bird, and
that the superb eyes were casting flashes
on him that seemed to carry him back
to days of early boyhood.

Once he caught a mortified, pleading,
wistful glance that made him feel cs if
he had inflicted a cruel injury by his
thoughtless gaze, and he resolved to
plead the sense of recognition in excuse ;
but no sooner was the performance over
than she prevented all conversation by
saying, “ Lead me back at once to the
Queen, Sir ; she is about to retire.”” They
were already so near that there was not
time to say anything; he could only
hold as lightly as possible the tiny fingers
that he felt burning and quivering in
his hand, and then, after bringing her
to the side of the chair of state, he was
forced to release her with the mere
whisper of “ Pardon, Mademoiselle ;”
and the request was not replied to,
save by the additional stateliness of her
curtsey.

It was already late, and the party was
breaking up; but his head and heart
were still in a whirl when he found
himself seated in the ambassadorial
coach, hearing Lady Walsingham’s well-
pleased rehearsal of all the compliments
she had received on the distinguished
appearance of both her young guests.
Sidney, as the betrothed of her daughter,
was property of her own; but she also
exulted in the praises of the young Lord
de Ribaumont, as proving the excel-
lence of the masters whom she had
recommended to remove the rustic
clownishness of which he had been
accused.

“ Nay,” said Sir Francis ; “ whoever
called him too clownish for court spake
with design.”

The brief sentence added to Beren-
ger’s confused sense of being in a mist
of false play. Could his kinsman be
bent on keeping him from court ? Could
Narcisse be jealous of him? Mademoi-
selle de Ribaumont was evidently in-
clined to seek him, and her cousin

The White and Black Ribaumont.

131

might easily think her lands safer in
his absence. He would have been will-
ing to hold aloof as much as his uncle
and cousin could wish, save for an angry
dislike to being duped and cajoled; and,
moreover, a strong curiosity to hear and
see more of that little passionate bird,
fresh from the convent cage. Her ges-
ture and her eyes irresistibly carried
him back to old times, though whether
to an angry blackbird in the yew-tree
alleys at Leurre, or to the eager face
that had warned him to save his father,
he could not remember with any dis-
tinctness. At any rate, he was sur-
prised to find himself thinking so little
in comparison about the splendid beauty
and winning manners of his discarded
spouse, though he quite believed that,
now her captive was beyond her grasp,
she was disposed to catch at him again,
and try to retain him, or, as his titillated
vanity might whisper, his personal graces
might make her regret the family reso-
lution which she had obeyed.

CHAPTER VI.
FOULLY COZENED.
‘* 1] was the more deceived.” —Hamlet.

Tue unhappy Charles IX. had a dis-
position that in good hands might have
achieved great nobleness ; and though
cruelly bound and trained to evil, was
no sooner allowed to follow its natural
bent than it reached out eagerly towards
excellence. At this moment, it was his
mother’s policy to appear to leave the
ascendency to the Huguenot party, and
he was therefore allowed to contract
friendships which deceived the intended
victims the more completely, because his
admiration and attachment were spon-
taneous and sincere. Philip Sidney’s
varied accomplishments and pure lofty
character greatly attracted the young
King, who had leant on his arm con-
versing during great part of the ball,
and the next morning sent a royal
messenger to invite the two young
gentlemen to a party at pall-mall in the
Tuileries gardens.

The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

Pall-mall was either croquet or its near-
est relative, and was so much the fashion
that games were given in order to keep
up political influence, perhaps, because
the freedom of a garden pastime among
groves and bowers afforded opportunities
for those seductive arts on which Queen
Catherine placed so much dependence.
The formal gardens, with their squares
of level turf and clipped alleys, afforded
excellent scope both for players and
spectators, and numerous games had
been set on foot, from all of which,
however, Berenger contrived to exclude
himself, in his restless determination to
find out the little Demoiselle de Nide-
merle, or, at least, to discover whether
any intercourse in early youth accounted
for his undefined sense of remembrance.

He interrogated the first disengaged
person he could find, but it was only
the young Abbé de Meéricour, who had
been newly brought up from Dauphiné
by his elder brother to solicit a benefice,
and who knew nobody. To him, ladies
were only bright phantoms such as his
books had taught him to regard like the
temptations of St. Anthony, but whom
he actually saw treated with as free
admiration by the ecclesiastic as by the
layman.

Suddenly a clamour of voices arose
on the other side of the closely-clipped
wall of limes by which the two youths
were walking. There were the clear
tones of a young maiden expostulating
in indignant distress, and the banter-
ing, indolent determination of a male
annoyer.

“ Hark !” exclaimed Berenger ; “ this
must be seen to.”

“Have a care,” returned Méricour ;
“T have heard that a man needs look
twice ere meddling.”

Scarcely hearing, Berenger strode on
as he had done at the last village wake,
when he had rescued Cis of the Down
from the impertinence of a Dorchester
serivener. It was a like case, he saw,
when breaking through the arch of
clipped limes he beheld the little De-
moiselle de Nidemerle, driven into a
corner and standing at bay, with glowing
cheeks, flashing eyes, and hands clasped

over her breast, while a young man,
dressed in the extreme of foppery, was
assuring her that she was the only lady
who had not granted him a token—that
he could not allow such pensionnaire
airs, and that now he had caught her
he would have his revenge, and win
her rose-coloured breastknot. Another
gentleman stood by, laughing, and keep-
ing guard in the walk that led to the
more frequented part of the gardens.

“ Hold !” thundered Berenger.

The assailant had just mastered the
poor girl’s hand, but she took advantage
of his surprise to wrench it away and
gather herself up as for a spring, but
the Abbé in dismay, the attendant in
anger, cried out, “Stay—it is Mon-
sieur.”

“ Monsieur ; be he who he may,” ex-
claimed Berenger, ‘no honest man can
see a lady insulted.”

“ Are you mad? It is Monsieur the
Duke of Anjou,” said Méricour, pouncing
on his arm.

“Shall we have him to the guard-
house?” added the attendant, coming
up on the other side; but Henri de Valois
waved them both back, and burst into
a derisive laugh. “No, no; do you
not see who itis? Monsieur the English
Baron still holds the end of the halter.
His sale is not yet made. Come away,
D’O, he will soon have enough on his
hands without us. Farewell, fair lady,
another time you will be free of your
jealous giant.”

So saying, the Duke of Anjou strolled
off, feigning indifference and contempt,
and scarcely heeding that he had been
traversed in one of the malicious ad-
ventures which he delighted to recount
in public before the discomfited victim
herself, often with shameful exaggeration.

The girl clasped her hands over her
brow with a gesture of dismay, and
cried, “Oh ! if you have only not touched
your sword,”

“Let me have the honour of recon-
ducting you, Mademoiselle,” said Be-
renger, offering his hand ; but after the
first sigh of relief, a tempestuous access
seized her. She seemed about to dash
away his hand, her bosom swelled with

The White and Black Ribaumont.

resentment, and with a voice striving for
dignity, though choked with strangled
tears, she exclaimed, “‘ No, indeed ! Had
not M. le Baron forsaken me I had
never been thus treated!” and her eyes
flashed through their moisture.

“ Eustacie! You are Eustacie!”

“Whom would you have me to be
otherwise? I have the honour to wish
M. le Baron a good morning.”

“Eustacie! Stay! Hearme! Itcon-
cerns my honour. [I see it is you—but
whom have I seen? Who was she?”
he cried, half wild with dismay and
confusion. “ Was it Diane ?”

“You have seen and danced with
Diane de Ribaumont,” answered Eus-
tacie, still coldly ; “but what of that?
Let me go, Monsieur ; you have cast me
off already.”

“T! when all this has been of your
own seeking ?”

“Mine?” cried Eustacie, panting
with the struggle between her dignity
and her passionate tears. “I meddled
not. I heard that M.le Baron was
gone to a strange land, and had written
to break off old ties.” Her face was in
a flame, and her efforts for composure
absolute pain.

“1!” again exclaimed LBerenger.
“ The first letter came from your uncle,
declaring that it was your wish!” And
as her face changed rapidly, “Then it
was not true! He has not had your
consent ?”

“What! would I hold to one who
despised me—who came here and never
even asked to see this hated spouse !”

“T did! lIcentreated to see you. [
would not sign the application till—Oh,
there has been treachery! And have
they made you too sign it?”

“ When they showed me your name
they were welcome to mine.”

Berenger struck his forehead with
wrath and perplexity, then cried, joy-
fully, ‘‘ It will not stand for a moment.
So foul a cheat can be at once exposed.
Eustacie, you know—you understand,
that it was not you but Diane whom I
saw and detested ; and no wonder, when
she was acting such a cruel treason !”

“ Oh no, Diane would never so treat

133
me,” cried Eustacie. “I see how it
was! Youdid not know that my father
was latterly called Marquis de Nid-de-
Merle, and when they brought me here,
they would call me after him : they said
a maid of honour must be Demoiselle,
and my uncle said there was only one
way in which I could remain Madame
de Ribaumont! And the name must
have deceived you, Thou wast always
a great dull boy,” she added, with a
sudden assumption of childish intimacy
that annihilated the nine years since
their parting.

“Had I seen thee, I had not mis-
taken for an instant. This little face
stirred my heart; hers repelled me. And
she deceived me wittingly, Eustacie, for
I asked after her by name.”

“ Ah, she wished to spare my em-
barrassment. And then her brother
must have dealt with her.”

“T see,” exclaimed Berenger, “ I am
to be palmed off thus that thou mayst
be reserved for Narcisse. Tell me,
Eustacie, wast thou willing ?”

“ T hate Narcisse !” she cried.
oh, I am lingering too long. Monsieur
will make some hateful tale! I never
fell into his way before, my Queen and
Mme. la Comtesse are so careful. Only
to-day, as I was attending her alone,
the King came and gave her his arm,
and I had to drop behind. I must find
her; I shall be missed,” she added, in
sudden alarm. “Oh, what will theysay ?”

“No blame for being with thy hus-
band,” he answered, clasping her hand.
“Thou art mine henceforth. I will
soon cut our way out of the web
thy treacherous kindred have woven.
Meantime——”

“Hush! There are voices,” cried
Eustacie in terror, and, guided by some-
thing he could not discern, she fled with
the swiftness of a bird down the alley.
Following, with the utmost speed that
might not bear the appearance of pur-
suit, he found that on coming to the
turn she had moderated her pace, and
was more tranquilly advancing to a bevy
of ladies, who sat perched on the stone
steps like great butterflies sunning them-
selves, watching the game, and receiving

“ But

a

the attentions of their cavaliers. He saw
her absorbed into the group, and then
began to prowl round it, in the alleys,
in a tumult of amazement and indigna-
tion. He had been shamefully deceived
and cheated, and justice he would have !
He had been deprived of a thing of his
own, and he would assert his right. He
liad been made to injure and disown the
creature he was bound to protect, and
he must console her and compensate to
her, were it only to redeem his honour.
He never even thought whether he
loved her ; he merely felt furious at the
wrong he had suffered and been made
to commit, and hotly bent on recovering
what belonged tohim. He might even
have plunged down among the ladies
and claimed her as his wife, if the young
Abbé de Méricour, who was two years
older than he and far less of a boy for
his years, had not joined him in his
agitated walk. He then learnt that all
the Court knew that the daughter of the
late Marquis de Nid-de Merle, Comte de
Kibaumont, was called by his chief title,
but that her marriage to himself had
been forgotten by some and unknown
to others, and thus that the first error
between the cousins had not been
wonderful in a stranger, since the cheva-
lier’s daughter had always been Mdlle.
de Ribaumont. The error once made,
Berenger’s distaste to Diane had been
so convenient that it had been carefully
encouraged, and the desire to keep him
at a distance from Court and throw him
into the background was accounted for.
The Abbé was almost as indignant as
Berenger, and assured him both of his
sympathy and his discretion.

“T see no need for discretion,” said
Berenger. “I shall claim my wife in
the face of the sun.”

“Take counsel first, I entreat,” ex-
claimed Méricour. ‘The Ribaumonts
have much influence with the Guise
family, and now you have offended
Monsieur.”

“Ah! where are those traitorous
kinsmen ?” cried Berenger.

“ Fortunately all are gone on an ex-
pedition with the Queen-mother. You
will have time to think. I have heard

The Chaplet of Pearis ; or,

my brother say no one ever prospere:l
who offended the meanest follower of
the house of Lorraine.”

“T do not want prosperity, I only
want my wife. I hope I shall never
see Paris and its deceivers again.”

“Ah! but is it true that you have
applied to have the marriage annulled
at Rome ?”

“We were both shamefully deceived.
That can be nothing.”

“A decree of his Holiness: you a
Huguenot ; she an heiress. All is against
you. My friend, be cautious,” exclaimed
the young ecclesiastic, alarmed by his
passionate gestures. “To break forth
now and be accused of brawling in the
palace precincts would be fatal—fatal —
most fatal!”

“T am as calm as possible,” returned
Berenger. “I mean to act most reason-
ably. I shall stand before the King
and tell him openly how I have been
tampered with, demanding my wife
before the whole Court.”

“Long before you could get so far
the ushers would have dragged you
away for brawling, or for maligning an
honourable gentleman. You would have
to finish your speech in the Bastille, and
it would be well if even your English
friends could get you out alive.”

“Why, what a place is this!” began
Berenger ; but again Méricour entreate:
him to curb himself; and his English
education had taught him to credit the
house of Guise with so much mysterious
power and wickedness, that he allowed
himself to be silenced, and promised to
take no open measures till he had con-
sulted the Ambassador.

He could not obtain another glimpse
of Eustacie, and the hours passed tardily
till the break up of the party. Charles
could scarcely release Sidney from his
side, and only let him go on condition
that he should join the next day in an
expedition to the hunting chateau of
Montpipeau, to which the King seemed
to look forward as a great holiday and
breathing time.

When at length the two youths did
return, Sir Francis Walsingham was
completely surprised by the usually

The White and Black Ribaumont.

tractable, well-behaved stripling, whose
praises he had been writing to his old
friend, bursting in on him with the out-
ery, “Sir, sir, I entreat your counsel!
I have been foully cozened.”

“ Of how much ?” said Sir Francis, in
a tone of reprobation.

“Of my wife. Of mine honour. Sir,
your Excellency, I crave pardon if I
spoke too hotly,” said Berenger, collect-
ing himself, “ but it is enough to drive
a man to frenzy.”

“Sit down, my Lord de Ribaumont.
Take breath, and let me know what is
this coil. What hath thus moved him,
Mr. Sidney?”

“ Tt is as he says, Sir,” replied Sidney,
who had heard all as they returned ; “ he
has been greatly wronged. The Chevalier
de Ribaumont not only writ to propose
the separation without the lady’s know-
ledge, but imposed his own daughter on
our friend as the wife he had not seen
since infancy.”

“ There, Sir,” broke forth Berenger ;
“ surely if I claim mine own in the face
of day, no man can withhold her from
me!”

“ Hold!” said Sir Francis. ‘ What
means this passion, young sir? Me-
thought you came hither convinced that
both the religion and the habits in
which the young lady had been bred
up rendered your infantine contract
most unsuitable. What hath fallen
out to make this change in your
mind ?”

“That I was cheated, Sir. The lady
who palmed herself off on me as my
wife was a mere impostor, the Chevalier’s
own daughter !”

“That may be ; but what know you
of this other lady? Has she been bred
up in faith or manners such as your
parents would have your wife?”

“ She is my wife,” reiterated Berenger.
“My faith is plighted to her. That is
enough for me.”

Sir Francis made a gesture of despair.
“He has seen her, I suppose,” said he
to Sidney. ;

“ Yes truly, sir,” answered Berenger ;
“and found that she had been as
greatly deceived as myself.”

155

“Then mutual consent is wanting,”
said the statesman, gravely musing.

“That is even as I say,” began
Berenger, but Walsingham held up his
hand, and desired that he would make
his full statement in the presence of his
tutor. Then sounding a little whistle,
the aimbassador despatched a page tu
request the attendance of Mr. Adderley,
and recommended young Ribaumom
in the meantime to compose himself.

Used to being under authority as
Berenger was, the somewhat severe tone
did much to allay his excitement, and
remind him that right and reason were
so entirely on his side, that he had only
to be cool and rational to make them
prevail. He was thus able to give «
collected and coherent account of his
discovery that the part of his wife had
been assumed by her cousin Diane, and
that the signature of both the young pair
to the application to the Pope had been
obtained on false pretences. That he had,
as Sidney said, been foully cozened in
both senses of the word, was as clear as
daylight ; but he was much angered and
disappointed to find that neither the
ambassador nor his tutor could see that
Eustacie’s worthiness was proved by the
iniquity of her relations, or that any one
of the weighty reasons for the expe-
diency of dissolving the marriage was
removed. The whole affair had been in
such good train a little before, that Mr.
Adderley was much distressed that it
should thus have been crossed, and
thought the new phase of affairs would
be far from acceptable at Combe
Walwyn.

“Whatever is just and honourable
must be acceptable to my grandfather,”
said Berenger.

“ Even so,” said Walsingham ; “ but
it were well to consider whether justice
and honour require you to overthrow
the purpose wherewith he sent you
hither.”

“Surely, sir, justice and honour re-
quire me to fulfil a contract to which
the other party is constant,” said
Berenger, feeling very wise and prudent
for calling that wistful, indignant crea-
ture the other party.

eS.

136

“That is also true,” said the ambas-
sador, “ provided she be constant ; but
you own that she signed the requisition
for the dissolution.” ,

“She did so, but under the same
deception as myself, and further morti-
fied and aggrieved at my seeming faith-
lessness.” :

“So it may easily be represented,”
muttered Walsingham.

“ How, sir?” cried Berenger, impe-
tuously ; “ do you doubt her truth?”

“ Heaven forefend,” said Sir Francis,
“that I should discuss any fair lady’s
sincerity! The question is how far you
are bound. Have I understood you
that you are veritably wedded, not by a
mere contract of espousal ?”

Berenger could produce no documents,
for they had been left at Chateau Leurre,
and on his father’s death the Chevalier
had claimed the custody of them; but
he remembered enough of the cere-
menial to prove that the wedding had
been a veritable one, and that only the
papal intervention could annul it.

Indeed an Englishman, going by
English law, would own no power in
the Pope nor any one on earth, to sever
the sacred tie of wedlock ; but French
courts of law would probably ignore the
mode of application, and would certainly
endeavour to separate between a Catholic
and a heretic.

“T am English, sir, in heart and
faith,” said Berenger, earnestly. “Look
upon me as such, and tell me, am [
married or single at this moment?”

“ Married assuredly. More’s the
pity,” said Sir Francis.

“* And no law of God or man divides
us without our own consent.” There
was no denying that the mutual consent
of the young pair at their present age
was all that was wanting to complete
the inviolability of their marriage con-
tract.

Berenger was indeed only eighteen,
and Eustacie more than a year younger,
but there was nothing in their present
age to invalidate their marriage, for per-
sons of their rank were usually wedded
quite as young or younger. Walsingham
‘was only concerned at his old friend’s dis-

The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

appointment, and at the danger of the
young man running headlong into acon-
nexion probably no more suitable than
that with Diane de Ribaumont would
have been. But it was not convenient to
argue against the expediency of a man’s
loving his own wife ; and when Berenger
boldly declared he was not talking of
love but of justice, it was only possible
to insist that he should pause and see
where true justice lay.

And thus the much perplexed ambas-
sador broke up the conference with his
hot and angry young guest.

“And Mistress Lucy ?” sighed
Mr. Adderley, in rather an inapropos
fashion it must be owned ; but then he
had been fretted beyond endurance by
his pupil striding up and down his
room, reviling Diane, and describing
Eustacie, while he was trying to write
these uncomfortable tidings to Lord
Walwyn.

“Lucy! What makes you bring
her up to me?” exclaimed Berenger.
* Little Dolly would be as much to the
purpose !”

“Only, sir, no resident at Hurst
Walwyn could fail to know what has
been planned and desired.”

“Pshaw!” cried Berenger; “ have
you not heard that it was a mere fig-
ment, and that I could scarce have
wedded Lucy safely, even had this
matter gone as you wish. This is the
luckiest chance that could have befallen
her.”

“That may be,” said Mr. Adderley ; .
“T wish she may think so— sweet
young lady!” 7

“T tell you, Mr. Adderley, you should
know better! Lucy has more sense.
My aunt, whom she follows more than
any other creature, ever silenced the
very sport or semblance of love passages
between us even as children, by calling
them unseemly in one wedded as I am.
Brother and sister we have ever been,
and have loved as such—aye, and shall !
I know of late some schemes have crossed
my mother’s mind—”

“Yea, and that of others.”

* But they have not ruffled Lucy’s
quiet nature—trust me! And for the

The White and Black Ribaumont.

rest? What doth she need of me in
comparison of this poor child? She—
like a bit of her own grey lavender in
the shadiest nook of the walled garden,
tranquil there—sure not to be taken
there, save to company with fine linen
in some trim scented coffer, while this
fresh glowing rosebud has grown up
pure and precious in the very midst of
the foulest corruption Christendom can
show, and if I snatch her not from it, I,
the only living man who can, look you,
in the very bloom of her innocence and
sweetness, what is to be her fate? The
very pity of a Christian, the honour of
a gentleman would urge me, even if it
were not my most urgent duty !”

Mr. Adderley argued no more. When
Berenger came to his duty in the matter
he was invincible, and moreover all the
more provoking, because he mentioned
it with a sort of fiery sound of relish,
and looked so very boyish all the time.
Poor Mr. Adderley! feeling as if his
trust were betrayed, loathing the very
idea of a French Court lady, saw that
his pupil had been allured into a head-
long passion to his own misery, and that
of all whose hopes were set on him, yet
preached to by this stripling scholar
about duties and sacred obligations !
Well might he rue the day he ever set
foot in Paris.

Then, to his further annoyance, came
a royal messenger to invite the Baron de
Ribaumont to join the expedition to
Montpipeau. Of course, he must go,
and his tutor must be left behind, and
who could tell into what mischief he
might not be tempted !

Here, however, Sidney gave the poor
chaplain some comfort. He believed
that no ladies were to be of the party,
and that the gentlemen were chiefly of
the King’s new friends among the
Huguenots, such as Coligny, his son-in-
law Teligny, Rochefoucauld, and the
like, among whom the young gentleman
could not fall into any very serious
harm, and might very possibly be in-
fluenced against a Roman Catholic wife.
At any rate, he would be out of the
way, and unable to take any dangerous

steps.

137

This same consideration so annoyed
Berenger that he would have declined
the invitation, if royal invitations could
have been declined. And in the morn-
ing, before setting out, he dressed him-
self, point device, and with Osbert
behind him marched down to the Croix
de Lorraine, to call upon the Chevalier
de Ribaumont. He had a very fine
speech at his tongue’s end when he set
out, but a good deal of it had evaporated
when he reached the hotel, and perhaps
he was not very sorry not to find the
old gentleman within.

On his return, he indited a note to
the Chevalier, explaining that he had
now seen his wife, Madame la Baronne
de Ribaumont, and had come to an un-
derstanding with her, by which he found
that it was under a mistake that the
application to the Pope had been signed,
and that they should, therefore, follow
it up with a protest, and act as if no
such letter had been sent.

Berenger showed this letter to Wal-
singham, who, though much concerned,
could not forbid his sending it. “ Poor
lad,” he said to the tutor; “’tis an ex-
cellently writ billet for one so young. I
would it were in a wiser cause. But he
has fairly the bit between his teeth, and
there is no checking him while he has
this show of right on his side.”

And poor Mr. Adderley could only
beseech Mr, Sidney to take care of him.

CHAPTER VIL
THE QUEEN’S PASTORAL.

‘* Either very gravely gay,
Or very gaily grave.”
W. M. Praep.

Montr1Peav, though in the present day
a suburb of Paris, was in the sixteenth
century far enough from the city to
form a sylvan retreat, where Charles IX.
could snatch a short respite from the
intrigues of his Court, under pretext of
enjoying his favourite sport. Surrounded
with his favoured associates of the Hu-
guenot party, he seemed to breathe a

138

purer atmosphere, and to yield himself
up to enjoyment greater than perhaps
his sad life had ever known.

He rode among his gentlemen, and the
brilliant cavalcade passed through pop-
lar-shaded roads, clattered through vil-
lages, and threaded their way through
bits of forest still left for the royal
chase. The people thronged out of their
houses, and shouted not only “‘ Vive le
Roy,” but “ Vive l'Amiral,” and more
than once the cry was added, ‘‘ Spanish
war, or civil war!” The heart of
France was, if not with the Reformed,
at least against Spain and the Lorrainers,
and Sidney perceived, from thé con-
versation of the gentlemen round him,
that the present expedition had been
devised less for the sake of the sport,
than to enable the King to take mea-
sures for emancipating himself from the
thraldom of his mother, and engaging
the country in a war against Philip II.
Sidney listened, but Berenger chafed,
feeling only that he was being further
carried out of reach of his explanation
with his kindred, and thus they arrived
at Montpipeau, a tower, tall and narrow,
like all French designs, but expanded
on the ground floor by wooden buildings
capable of containing the numerous
train of a royal hunter, and surrounded
by an extent of waste land, without
fine trees, though with covert for deer,
boars, and wolves sufficient for sport to
royalty and death to peasantry. Charles
seemed to sit more erect in his saddle,
and to drink in joy with every breath
of the thyme-scented breeze, from the
moment his horse bounded on the
hollow-sounding turf; and when he
leapt to the ground, with the elastic
spring of youth, he held out his hands
to Sidney and to Teligny, crying “ Wel-
come, my friends. Here I am indeed a
king!”

It was a lovely summer evening early
in August, and Charles bade the supper
to be spread under the elms that shaded
a green lawn in front of the chateau.
Etiquette was here so far relaxed as to
permit the sovereign to dine with his
suite, and tables, chairs, and benches
were brought out, drapery festooned in

The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

the trees to keep off sun and wind, the
King lay down in the fern and let his
happy dogs fondle him, and as a herd-
girl passed along a vista in the distance,
driving her goats before her, Philip
Sidney marvelled whether it was not
even thus in Arcadia.

Presently there was a sound of horses
trampling, wheels moving, a party of gaily
gilded archers of the guard jingled up,
and in their midst was a coach. Be-
renger’s heart seemed to leap at once to
his lips, as a glimpse of ruffs, hats,
and silks dawned on him through the
windows.

The King rose from his lair among
the fern, the Admiral stood forward, all
heads were bared, and from the coach-
door alighted the young Queen; no
longer pale, subdued, and indifferent,
but with a face shining with girlish
delight, as she held out her hand to the
Admiral. “Ah! this is well, this is
beautiful,” she exclaimed ; “it is like
our happy chaces in the Tyrol. Ah,
Sire !” to the King, “ how I thank you
for letting me be with you.”

After her Majesty, descended her
gentleman-usher. Then came the lady-
in-waiting, Madame de Sauve, the wife
of the state secretary in attendance on
Charles, and a triumphant, coquettish
beauty, then a fat, good-humoured Aus-
trian dame, always called Madame la
Comtesse, because her German name was
unpronounceable, and without whom the
Queen never stirred, and lastly a little
figure, rounded yet slight, slender yet
soft and plump, with a kitten-like alert-
ness and grace of motion, as she sprang
out, collected the Queen’s properties of
fan, kerchief, pouncet-box, mantle, &c.,
and disappeared into the chateau, with-
out Berenger’s being sure of anything
but that her little black hat had a rose-
coloured feather in it.

The Queen was led to a chair placed
under one of the largest trees, and there
Charles presented to her such of his
gentlemen as she was not yet acquainted
with, the Baron de Ribaumont among
the rest.

“T have heard of M. de Ribaumont,”
she said, in a tone that made the colour

The White and Black Ribaumont. 139

mantle in his fair cheek, and with a
sign of her hand she detained him at
her side till the King had strolled away
with Madame la Sauve, and no one
remained near but her German countess.
Then, changing her tone to one of con-
fidence, which the highbred homeliness
of her Austrian manner rendered inex-
pressibly engaging, she said, “I must
apologize, monsieur, for the giddiness of
my sister-in-law, which I fear caused
you some embarrassment.”

“ Ah, madame,” said Berenger, kneel-
ing on one knee as she addressed him,
and his heart bounding with wild, un-
defined hope; “I cannot be grateful
enough. It was that which led to my
being undeceived.”

“Tt was true, then, that you were
mistaken ?” said the Queen.

“ Treacherously deceived, madame, by
those whose interest it is to keep us
apart,” said Berenger, colouring with
indignation ; “they imposed my other
cousin on me as my wife, and caused
her to think me cruelly neglectful.”

“T know,” said the Queen. “ Yet
Mile. de Ribaumont is far more admired
than my little blackbird.”

“That may be, madame, but not by
me.”

“ Yet is it true that you came to break
off the marriage?”

“Yes, madam,” said Berenger, honestly,
“but I had not seen her.”

“ And now?” said the Queen, smiling.

“T would rather die than give her
up,” said Berenger. “Oh, madame,
help us of your grace. Everyone is try-
ing to part us; everyone is arguing
against us, but she is my own true
wedded wife, and if you will but give
her to me, all will be well.”

“T like you, M. de Ribaumont,” said
the Queen, looking him full in the face.
“You are like our own honest Germans
at my home, and I think you mean all
you say. I had much rather my dear
little Nid-de-Merle were with you than
left here, to become like all the others.
She is a good little Liebling,—how do
you call it in French? She has told me
all, and‘truly I would help you with all
my heart, but it is not as if I were the

Queen-mother. You must have recourse
to the King, who loves you well, and at
my request included you in the hunting-
party.”

Berenger could only kiss her hand in
token of earnest thanks, before the repast
was announced, and the King came to
lead her to the table spread beneath the
trees. The whole party supped together,
but Berenger could have only a distant
view of his little wife, looking very
demure and grave by the side of the
Admiral.

But when the meal was ended, there
was a loitering in the woodland paths,
amid heathy openings or glades trimmed
into discreet wildness fit for royal rus-
ticity ; the sun set in parting glory on
one horizon, the moon rising in crimson
majesty on the other. A musician at
intervals touched the guitar, and sang
Spanish or Italian airs, whose soft or
quaint melody came dreamily through
the trees. Then it was that with beat-
ing heart Berenger stole up to the maiden
as she stood behind the Queen, and
ventured to whisper her name and clasp
her hand.

She turned, their eyes met, and she
let him. lead her apart into the wood.
It was not like a lover’s tryst, it was
more like the continuation of their old
childish terms, only that he treated her
as a thing of his own, that he was bound
to secure and to guard, and she received
him as her own lawful but tardy pro-
tector, to be treated with perfect reliance
but with a certain playful resentment.

“You will not run away from me
now,” he said, making full prize of her
hand and arm.

“ Ah! is not she the dearest and best
of queens?” and the large eyes were
lifted up to him in such frank seeking
of sympathy that he could see into the
depths of their clear darkness.

“Tt is her doing, then. Though,
Eustacie, when I knew the truth, not
flood nor fire should keep me long from
you, my heart, my love, my wife.”

“What! wife in spite of those villan-
ous letters?” she said, trying to pout.

“Wife for ever, inseparably. Only
you must be able to swear that you

140 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

knew nothing of the one that brought
me here.”

“Poor me! No, indeed! There was
Céline carried off at fourteen, Madame
de Blanchet a bride at fifteen; all
marrying hither and thither ; and I—”
she pulled a face irresistibly droll—* I
growing old enough to dress St. Cathe-
rine’s hair, and wondering where was
M. le Baron.”

“They thought me too young,” said
Berenger, “to take on me the cares of
life.”

“So they were left to me?”

“Cares! what cares have you but
finding the Queen’s fan ?”

« Little you know!” she said, half
contemptuous, half mortified.

“ Nay, pardon me, za mie. Who has
troubled you?”

“Ah! you would call it nothing to
be beset by Narcisse ; to be told one’s
husband is faithless, till one half believes
it ; to be looked at by ugly eyes ; to be
liable to be teased any day by Monsieur,
or worse, by that mocking ape, M.
d’Alengon, and to have nobody who can
or will hinder it.”

She was sobbing by this time, and he
exclaimed, “ Ah, would that I could
revenge all! Never, never shall it be
again! What blessed grace has guarded
you throngh all ?”

“ Did I not belong to you?” she said
exultingly. “And had not Sister Mo-
nique, yes, and M. le Baron striven hard
to make me good? Ah, how kind he
was !”

“My father? Yes, Enustacie, he
loved you to the last. He bade me, on
his deathbed, give you his own Book of
Psalms, and tell you he had always
loved and prayed for you.”

“Ah! his Psalms! I shall love
them! Even at Bellaise, when first we
came there, we used to sing them, but
the Mother Abbess went out visiting,
and when she came back she said they
were heretical. And Sceur Monique
would not let me say the texts he taught
me, but I weuld not forget them. I say
them often in my heart.”

“Then,” he cried joyfully, “ you will
willingly embrace my religion ?”

“ Be a Huguenot!” she said dis-
tastefully.

“T am not precisely a Huguenot ; I
do not love them,” he answered hastily,
“but all shall be ‘made clear to you at
~1y home in England.”

“ England !” she said. ‘ Must we live
in England? Away from everyone ?”

“ Ah, they will love you so much!
I shall make you so happy there,” he
answered. “ There you will see what it
is to be true and trustworthy.”

“JT had rather live at Chateau Leurre,
or my own Nid-de-Merle,” she replied.
“ There I should see Sur Monique, and
my aunt, the Abbess, and we would have
the peasants to dance in the castle-court.
Oh! if you could but see the orchards
at le Bocage, you would never want to
go away. And we could come now and
then to see my dear Queen.”

“Tam glad at least you would not
live at Court.”

“Oh, no, I have been more unhappy
here than ever I knew could be borne.”

And a very few words from him drew
out all that had happened to her since
they parted. Her father had sent her
to Bellaise, a convent founded by the
first of the Angevin branch, which was
presided over by his sister, and where
Diane was also educated. The good
sister Monique had been mistress of the
pensionnaires, and had evidently taken
much pains to keep her charge innocent
and devout. Diane had been taken to
Court about two years before, but
Eustacie had remained at the convent
till some three months since, when she
had been appointed Maid of Honour to
the recently-married Queen ; and heruncle
had fetched her from Anjou, and had
informed her at the same time that her
young husband had turned Englishman
and heretic, and that after a few for-
malities had been complied with, she
would become the wife of her cousin,
Narcisse. Now there was no person
whom she so much dreaded as Narcisse,
and when Berenger spoke of him asa
feeble fop, she shuddered as though she
knew him to have something of the tiger.

“Do you remember Benoit?” she
said, “ poor Bénoit, who came to Nor-

“TT lhlCU?OrOlUC SEC, CUTCCn!lhUhlc TC

The White and Black Ribaumont.

mandy as my laguais? When I went
back to Anjou he married a girl from
Leurre, and went to aid his father at
the farm. The poor fellow had imbibed
the Baron’s doctrine—he spread it. It
was reported that there was a nest of
Huguenots on the estate. My cousin
came to break it up with his gendarmes.
O Berenger, he would hear no entreaties,
he had no mercy ; he let them assemble
on Sunday, that they might be all
together. He fired the house; shot
down those who escaped : if a prisoner
were made, gave him up to the Bishop’s
Court. Bénoit, my poor good Bénoit,
who used to lead my palfrey, was first
wounded, then tried, and burnt—burnt
in the place at Lucon! I heard Nar-
cisse langh—laugh as he talked of the
cries of the poor creatures in the con-
venticle. My own people, who loved
me! Iwas but twelve years old, but
even then the wretch would pay me a
half-mocking courtesy, as one destined
to him ; and the more I disdained him
and said I belonged to you, the more
both he and my aunt, the Abbess, smiled,
as though they had their’bird in a cage ;
but they left me in peace till my uncle
brought me to Court, and then all began
again : and when they said you gave me
up, I had no hope, not even of a convent.
But ah, it is all over now, and I am so
happy! You are grown so gentle and so
beautiful, Berenger, and so much taller
than 1 ever figured you to myself, and
you look as if you could take me up in
your arms, and let no harm ever happen
to me.”

“ Never, never shall it,” said Berenger,
feeling all manhood, strength, and love
stir within him, and growing many years
in heart in that happy moment. ‘“ My
sweet little faithful wife, never fear
again, now you are mine.”

Alas! poor children. They were a
good way from the security they had
begun to fancy for themselves. Early
the next morning, Berenger went in his
straightforward way tothe King, thanked

him, and requested his sanction for at.

once producing themselves to the Court
as Monsieur and Madame la Baronne de
Ribaumont.

141

At this Charles swore a great oath,
as one in perplexity, and bade him not
go so fast.

“See here,” said he, with the rude
expletives only too habitual with him ;
“ she is a pretty little girl, and she and
her lands are much better with an
honest man like you than with that
pendard of a cousin ; but you see he is
bent on having her, and he belongs to
a cut-throat crew that halt at nothing!
I would not answer for your life, if
you tempted him so strongly to rid
himself of you.”

“ My own sword, sire, can guard my
life.”

“Plague upon your sword! What
does the foolish youth think it would
do against half-a-dozen poniards and
pistols in a lane black as hell’s mouth ?”

The foolish youth was thinking how
could a king so full of fiery words and
strange oaths bear to make such an
avowal respecting his own capital and
his own courtiers. All he could do was
to bow and reply, “ Nevertheless, sire,
at whatever risk, I cannot relinquish
my wife ; I would take her at once to
the ambassador's.”

“ How! sir!” interrupted Charles,
haughtily and angrily, “if you forget
that you are a French nobleman still, I
should remember it! The ambassador
may protect his own countrymen—none
else.”

“T entreat your Majesty’s pardon,”
said Berenger, anxious to retract his
false step. ‘“ It was your goodness and
the gracious Queen’s that made me hope
for your sanction.”

“ All the sanction Charles de Valois
can give is yours, and welcome,” said
the King, hastily. The sanction of the
King of France is another matter! To
say the truth, I see no way out of the
affair but an elopement.”

“Sire!” exclaimed the astonished
Berenger, whose strictly-disciplined edu-
cation had little prepared him for such
counseL

“Look you! If I made you known
as a wedded pair, the Chevalier and his
son would not only assassinate you, but
down on me would come my brother,

a

a ge ee ee ee

=

and my mother, and M. de Guise, and
all their crew, veritably for giving the
prize out of the mouth of their satellite,
but nominally for disregarding the Pope,
favouring a heretical marriage, and I
know not what, but, as things go here,
that I should assuredly get the worst
of it; but if you made salely off with
your prize, no one could gainsay you—
I need know nothing about it—and
lady and lands would be yours without
dispute. You might ride off from the
skirts of the forest ; I would lead the
hunt that way, and the three days’
riding would bring you to Normandy,
for you had best cross to England im-
mediately. When she is once there,
owned by your kindred, Monsieur le
cousin may gnash his teeth as he will,
he must make the best of it for the
sake of the honour of his house, and
you can safely come back and raise her
people and yours to follow the Oriflamme
when it takes the field against Spain.
What ? you are still discontented !
Speak out! Plain speaking is a treat
not often reserved for me.”

“Sire, 1 am most grateful for your
kindness, but I should greatly prefer
going straightforward.”

“ Peste! Well is it said that a blun-
dering Englishman goes always right
hefore him! There, then! As your
King on the one hand, as the friend
who has brought you and your wife
together, sir, it is my command that you
do not compromise me and embroil
zreater matters than you can understand
by publicly claiming this girl. Pri-
vately I will aid you to the best of my
ability ; publicly, I command you, for
my sake, if you heed not your own, to
be silent !”

Berenger sought out Sidney, who
smiled at his surprise.

“To you not see,” he said, “that
the King is your friend, and would be
very glad to save the lady’s lands from
the Guisards, but that he cannot say
so; he can only befriend a Huguenot
by stealth.”

“JT would not be such a king for
worlds !”

However, Eustacie was enchanted.

The Chaplet of Pearls ; or,

It was like a prince and princess in
Mére Perinne’s fairy tales. Could they
go like a shepherd and shepherdess?
She had no fears—no scruples. Would
she not be with her husband? It was
the most charming frolic in the world.
So the King seemed to think it, though
he was determined to call it all the
Queen’s doing—the first intrigue of her

own, making her like all the rest of us’

—the Queen’s little comedy. He un-
dertook to lead the chase as far as pos-
sible in the direction of Normandy,
when the young pair might ride on to
an inn, meet fresh horses, and proceed
to Chateau Leurre, and thence to Eng-
land. He would himself provide a safe
conduct, which, as Berenger suggested,
would represent them as a young Eng-
lishman. taking home his young wife.
Eustacie wanted at least to masquerade
as an English woman, and played off all
the fragments of the language she had
caught as a child, but Berenger only
laughed at her, and said they just fitted
the French bride. It was very pretty
to laugh at Eustacie; she made such a
droll pretence at pouting with her rose-
bud lips, and her merry velvety eyes
belied them so drolly.

Such was to be the Queen’s pastoral ;
but when Elisabeth found the respon-
sibility so entirely thrown on her, she
began to look grave and frightened. It
was no doubt much more than she had
intended when she brought about the
meeting between the young people, and
the King, who had planned the elope-
ment, seemed still resolved to make all
appear her affair. She looked all day
more like the grave, spiritless being she
was at Court than like the bright young
rural queen of the evening before, and
she was long in her little oratory chapel
in the evening. Berenger, who was
waiting in the hall with the other
Huguenot gentlemen, thought her devo-
tions interminable since they delayed
all her ladies. At length, however, a
page came up to him, and said in a low
voice, “The Queen desires the presence
of M. le Baron de Ribaumont.”

He followed the messenger, and found
himself in the little chapel, before a

Sm teed Oe at ot 4

——————S—— ll ee oe

1 od

The White and Black Ribaumont. 143

gaily-adorned altar, and numerous little
shrines and.niches round. Sidney would
have dreaded a surreptitious attempt to
make him conform, but Berenger had
no notion of such perils,—he only saw
that Eustacie was standing by the
Queen’s chair ; the King sat carelessly,
perhaps a little sullenly, in another
chair, and a kindly-looking Austrian
priest, the Queen’s confessor, held a
book in his hand.

The Queen came to meet him. “ For
my sake,” she said, with all her sweet-
ness, “to ease my mind, I should like
to see my little Eustacie made entirely
your own ere you go. Father Meinhard
tells me it is safer that, when the parties
were under twelve years old, the troth
should be again exchanged. No other
ceremony is needed.”

“T desire nothing but to have her
made indissolubly my own,” said Be-
renger, bowing.

“And the King permits,” added
Elisabeth.

The King growled out, “It is your
comedy, Madame ; I meddle not.”

The Austrian priest had no common
language with Berenger but Latin. He
asked a few questions, and on hearing
the answers, declared that the sacra-
ment of marriage had been complete,
but that—as was often done in such
cases—he would once more hear the
troth-plight of the young pair. The
brief formula was therefore at once ex-
changed—the King, when the Queen
looked entreatingly at him, rousing him-
self to make the bride over to Berenger.
As soon as the vows had been made, in
the briefest manner the King broke in
boisterously: ‘There, you are twice
married, to please Madame there ; but
hold your tongues all of you about this
scene in the play.”

Then almost pushing Eustacie over
to Berenger, he added, “ There she is ;
take your wife, sir: but mind, she was
as much yours before as she is now.”

But for all Berenger had said about
“his wife,” it was only now that he
really felt her his own, and became hus-
band rather than lover—man instead
of boy. She was entirely his own now,

No. 98.—voL. xvi.

and he only desired to be away with
her; but some days’ delay was neces-
sary. A chase on the scale of the one
that was to favour their evasion could
not be got up without some notice ;
and, moreover, it was neeessary to pro-
cure money, for neither Sidney nor
tibaumont had more than enough with
them for the needful liberalities to the
King’s servants and huntsmen. Indeed
Berenger had spent all that remained in
his purse upon the wares of an Italian
pedlar whom he and Eustacie met in
the woods, and whose gloves “as sweet
as fragrant posies,” fans, scent-boxes,
pocket mirrors, Genoa wire, Venice
chains, and other toys, afforded him the
means of making up the gifts that he
wished to carry home to his sisters ;
and Eustacie’s counsel was merrily given
in the choice. And when the vendor
began with a meaning smile to recom-
mend to the young pair themselves a
little silver-netted heart as a love-token,
and it turned out that all Berenger’s
money was gone, so that it could not be
bought without giving up the scented
casket destined for Lucy, Eustacie turned
with her sweetest, proudest smile, and
said, “ No, no, I will not have it; what
do we two want with love-tokens now?”

Sidney had taken the youthful and
romantic view of the case, and consi-
dered himself to be taking the best
possible care of his young friend, by
enabling him to deal honourably with
so charming a little wife as Eustacie.
Ambassador and tutor would doubtless
be very angry ; but Sidney could judge
for himself of the lady, and he therefore
threw himself into her interests, and
sent his servant back to Paris to procure
the necessary sum for the journey of
Master Henry Berenger and Mistress
Mary, his wife. Sidney was, on his
return alone to Paris, to explain all to
the elders, and pacify them as best he
could ; and his servant was already the
bearer of a letter from Berenger that
was to be sent at once to England with
Walsingham’s despatches, to prepare
Lord Walwyn for the arrival of the
runaways. The poor boy laboured to
be impressively calm and reasonable in

L

144 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or, The White and Black Ribaumont.

his explanation of the misrepresentation,
and of his strong grounds for assuming
his rights, with his persuasion that his
wife would readily join the English
Church—a consideration that he knew
would greatly smoothe the way for her.
Indeed, his own position was impreg-
nable: nobody could blame him for
taking his own wife to himself, and he
was so sre of her charms, that he
troubled himself very little about the
impression she might make on his kin-
dred. If they loved her, it was all
right ; if not, he could take her back to
her own castle, and win fame and
honour under the banner of France in
the Low Countries. As to Lucy
Thistlewood, she was far too discreet to
feel any disappointment or displeasure ;
or if she should, it was her own fault and
that of his mother, for all her life she
had known him to be married. So he
finished his letter with a message that
the bells should be ready to ring, and
that when Philip heard three guns fired
on the coast, he might light the big
beacon pile above the Combe.
Meantime “the Queen’s Pastoral” was
much relished by all the spectators.
The state of things was only avowed to
Charles, Elisabeth, and Philip Sidney,
and even the last did not know of the
renewed troth which the King chose to
treat as such a secret ; but no one had
any doubt of the mutual relations of M.
de Ribaumont and Mlle. de Nid-de-Merle,
and their dream of bliss was like a pas-
toral for the special diversion of the
holiday of Montpipeau. The transpa-
rency of their indifference in company,
their meeting eyes, their trysts with
the secrecy of an ostrich, were the sub-
jects of constant amusement to the
elders, more especially as the shyness,
blushes, and caution were much more
on the side of the young husband than
on that of the lady. Fresh from her
convent, siiaple with childishness and
innocence, it was to her only the natural
completion of her life to be altogether
Berenger’s, and the brief concealment of
their full union only added a certain
romantic enchantment, which added to
her exultation in her victory over her

cruel kindred. She had been upon her
own mind, poor child, for her few weeks
of Court life, but not long enough to
make her grow older, though just so
long as to make the sense of having her
own protector with her doubly precious.
He, on the other hand, though full of
happiness, did also feel constantly deep-
ening on him the sense of the charge
and responsibility he had assumed,
hardly knowing how. _ The more dear
Eustacie became to him, the more she
rested on him and became entirely his,
the more his boyhood and insouciance
drifted away behind him; and while he
could hardly bear to have his darling a
moment out of his sight, the less he
could endure any remark or jest upon
his affection for her. His home had
been a refined one, where Cecily’s con-
vent purity seemed to diffuse an atmo-
sphere of modest reserve such as did not
prevail in the Court of the Maiden
Queen herself, and the lad of eighteen
had not seen enough of the outer world
to have rubbed off any of that grace.
His seniority to his little wife seemed
to show itself chiefly in his being put
out of countenance for her, when she
was too innocent and too proud of her
secret matronhood to understand or
resent the wit.

Little did he know that this was the
ballet-like interlude in a great and ter-
rible tragedy, whose first act was being
played out on the stage where they
schemed and sported, like their own
little drama, which was all the world
to them, and nothing to the others.
Bercenger knew indeed that the Admiral
was greatly rejoiced that the Nid-de-Merle
estates should go into Protestant hands,
and that the old gentleman lost no
opportunity of impressing on him that
they were a heavy trust, to be used for
the benefit of “ the Religion,” and for
the support of the King in his better
mind. But it may be feared that he
did not give a very attentive ear to all
this. He did not like to think of those
estates ; he would gladly have left them
all to Narcisse, so that he might have
their lady, and though quite willing to
win his spurs under Charles and Coligny

2 ie a

“ The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.”

against the Spaniard, his heart and head
were far too full to take in the web of
politics. Sooth to say, the elopement
in prospect seemed to him intinitely
more important than Pope or Spaniard,
Guise or Huguenot, and Coligny ob-
served with a sigh to Teligny that he
was a good boy, but nothing but the
merest boy, with eyes open only to
himself.

When Charles undertook to rehearse
their escape with them, and the Queen
drove out in a little high-wheeled Jitter
with Mme. la Comtesse, while Mme.
de Sauve and Eustacie were mounted on
gay palfreys with the pommelled side-
saddle, lately invented by the Queen-
mother, Berenger, as he watched the
fearless horsemanship and graceful bear-
ing of his newly-won wife, had no
speculations to spend on the thoughtful
face of the Admiral. And when at the
outskirts of the wood the King’s be-
wildering hunting-horn—sounding as it
were now here, now there, now low,
now high — called every attendant to
hasten to its summons, leaving the
young squire and damsel errant with a
long winding high-banked lane before
them, they reckoned the dispersion to
be all for their sakes, and did not note,
as did Sidney’s clear eye, that when the
entire. company had come straggling
home, it was the King who came up
with Mme. de Sauve almost the last ;
and a short space after, as if not to
appear to have been with him, appeared
the Admiral and his son-in-law.

145

Sidney also missed one of the Ad-
miral’s most trusted attendants, and
from this and other symptoms he
formed his conclusions that the King
had seattered his followers as much for
the sake of an unobserved conference
with Coligny as for the convenience of
the lovers, and that letters had been
despatched in consequence of that
meeting.

Those letters were indeed of a kind
to change the face of affairs in France.
Marshal Strozzi, then commanding in
the south-west, was bidden to embark
at La Rochelle in the last week of
August, to hasten to the succour of the
Prince of Orange against Spain, and
letters were despatched by Coligny to
all the Huguenot partisans bidding them
assemble at Melun on the 3d of Sep-
tember, when they would be in the im-
mediate neighbourhood of the Court,
which was bound for Fontainebleau.
Was the star of the Guises indeed
waning? Was Charles about to escape
from their hands, and commit himself
to an honest, high-minded policy, in
which he might have been able to purify
his national Church, and win back to
her those whom her corruptions had
driven to seek truth and morality be-
yond her pale?

Alas ! there was a bright pair of eyes
that saw more than Philip Sidney’s, a
pair of ears that heard more, a tongue
and pen less faithful to guard a secret.

To be continued.

“THE NILE TRIBUTARIES OF ABYSSINIA.” ?

BY THOMAS HUGHES, M.P.

We had almost called this very de-
lightful volume, in the outset of such
remarks as we have to make upon it,

1 The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, and

the Sword-Hunters of the Hamran Arabs. By
Sir Samuel White Baker, M.A. F.R.G.S.
Macmillan and Co,

a sporting book. Indeed, it carries the
usual marks of the species on the very
face of it. On the cover there is an
elephant lumbering at full speed after
Sir Samuel, crouched on the neck of his
famous hunter Tetel. Almost all the
illustrations in the book itself are of
L2

146 “ The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.”

moving incidents of the chase. You can-
not dip into the narrative for five
minutes without having cause, with its
master, to rejoice over some perform-
ance of his favourite rifle, the “ little
Fletcher, No. 24;” and in no other book
that we remember are the deaths of
mighty beasts mere graphically told.
But, for all that, the book is not a
sporting book, though the work of a
true sportsman, and we beg Sir Samuel's
pardon for the injustice we had so nearly
done him.

A “sportsman” is about as like a
“sporting man” as a chestnut horse is
like a horse chestnut, and it is “ sporting
men ” who have come to the front within
the last few years, and sporting literature
has been “ hot in the mouth” ever since.
Sport ! alas the day! The word seems to
have come to mean, with this generation,
consorting with “legs ” and getting into
the grasp of Jews ; or two breech-loaders,
and a keeper close behind, to take even
the exertion of loading off the hands of
the chief performer, a luxurious meal in
the middle of the day, and a station in
the grass ride of a wood, where, with a
cigar in his mouth, a man may shoot
hares, fat with the farmer's corn, till
they lie in a heap, and pheasants which
were brought up round the keeper's
house, and know him so well that they
run towards instead of away from him,
and can hardly be kicked up by the
beaters. The very grouse are said to be
dying of over-crowding, and even deer-
stalking is made easy for our jeunesse
dorée by all manner of devices. The
huge bags, the result of these doings,
are, as a rule, sent to the family fish-
monger and poulterer, and their cost
price forms a satisfactory item on the
eredit side in the year’s accounts. To
such a pass has “ sport,” so-called, come
in these islands; and apparently no
doubt comes across the minds of those
who cultivate it but that even in its
present form it is a manly occupation,
and healthy for mind and body. And
in this belief, year by year, they take
more and more strapping young la-
bourers away from productive industry
for keepers and watchers, and the price

of pheasants’ eggs goes steadily up, and
the bags get larger and larger, and it is
taken for granted in polite society that
all is as it should be in this best of
worlds, and that game, reared in the
homestead and fed by the farmers, is
one of those Conservative institutions
upon which England’s welfare mainly
depends, and which the people reverence
from the bottom of their hearts.
However, our business at present is
not with the sham English, but with
the genuine wild article ; and a better
specimen of the true “ sportsman” than
Sir 8. Baker we are not likely to meet
with on any continent. True, the
instinct of sport is so strong in him
that he cannot resist pitting his brains
and strength against those of every
animal that travels on four legs, apart
from the question whether the victory
will give him a carcase which he can
turn to any account. But when once
he has conquered there is no mere
desire for blood, no lust of slaying
for its own sake, which nauseates one
in Gordon Cumming, and men of
that stamp. To illustrate our meaning,
take the death of the wild ass (p. 56).
Sir Samuel describes the creature in
his native desert with enthusiasm.
He stands from thirteen to fourteen
hands high; his colour is a “reddish
cream” of the prevalent tint of the
ground he inhabits; he is “the per-
fection of activity and courage,” poor
Neddy, as he stands there sniffing the
desert air, and looking as God meant
him to look: “ there is a high-bred tone
‘in his deportment, a high-actioned
“ step when he trots freely over the
“rocks and sand, or, with the speed of
“a horse, gallops over the boundless
“ desert.”—“ I had to exert my utmost
“ knowledge of stalking to obtain a shot
“atthe male. After at least an hour
* and a half I succeeded in obtaining a
“long shot with a single rifle, which
“ passed through the shoulder, and I
“obtained my first and last donkey.
“ Tt was with extreme regret that I saw
“ my beautiful prize in the last gasp,
“and I resolved never to fire another
“ shot at one of its race.” Or, again,

veil

a —_ —

e+; D eH He we Oe ee me ob 85 lhe ees ss

en. eee

“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.” 147

the admiring sketch of the gazelle
(pp. 48, 49), summed up with: “ Alto-
“gether it is the most beautiful spe-
“cimen of game which exists, far too
“ lovely and harmless to be hunted and
“ killed for the mere love of sport. But
“when dinner depends on the rifle,
“ beauty is no protection ; accordingly
* throughout our desert march we lived
“on gazelles, and I am sorry to confess
“ that I became very expert at stalking
“ these wary little animals.” Even the
excellent hippo, a beast for whom one’s
liking grows the more one knows of
him, was never slain wantonly, scarcely
without regret, after the novelty of
bagging him wore off; and this, not-
withstanding his great value to the
tribes amongst whom the hunter was
dwelling, and whose good will it was so
desirable to obtain by supplies of meat
so cheaply obtained. In short, Sir
Samuel never shoots for the bag, or, as
he himself says, “to waste,” but only
for the pot, or for scientific purposes ;
delights in encounters with the wariest
and most dangerous beasts; and gives
away his game like an old-fashioned
English gentleman.

There are two other characteristics of
a royal hunter which can scarcely fail
to strike the most careless reader of this
book, and these are, his contempt for
lions, and his cordial and generous
admiration for rival sportsmen. The
king of beasts goes roaring unnoticed
round his encampment for weeks
together, but scarcely ever tempts him
to go a mile out of his way, or to pull
a trigger. We have just parenthetical
accounts of the deaths of two lions, and
no more, and Baker’s estimate of them
may be gathered from the passage de-
scriptive of his delight at coming upon
the lion and unicorn in the British arms
over the consulate at Khartoum, after a
long year’s sojourn in the desert, “ not
“ such a lion as I had been accustomed
“to meet in his native jungles, a
“ cowardly yellow fellow, that had often

“slunk away from the very prey from °

“which I had driven him, but a real
“ British lion, that, although thin and
“ragged in the unhealthy climate of

“ Khartoum, looked as though he was
“ pluck to the backbone.”

His description of the aggageers, or
elephant hunters, of the Hamran Arabs,
who attack all the great game of the
country armed with nothing but swords,
is too long to be extracted here, and too
interesting to be mutilated, so that we
can only recommend it to all readers
who respect skill and courage. We
shall be surprised if they do not catch
some of Baker’s enthusiasm from the
perusal, ‘ This extraordinary hunting,”
he sums up (p. 174), “is attended with
“ superlative danger, and the hunters
“ frequently fall victims to their in-
“ trepidity. . . . As I listened to these
“fine fellows, who in a modest and
“ unassuming manner recounted their
“ adventures as matters of course, I felt
“exceedingly small. My whole life had
“been spent in wild sports from early
“manhood, and I had imagined I
“understood as much as most people
“on the subject: but here were men
“ who, without the aid of the best rifles
“and deadly projectiles, went straight
“at their game, and faced the lion in
“ his den with shield and sabre. There
“is a freemasonry about hunters, and
“my heart was drawn towards these
“ aggageers. We fraternized on the spot,
“and I looked forward with intense
“ pleasure to the day when we might
‘* become allies in action. I have been
“ yewarded by this alliance in being now
“able to speak of the deeds of others
“ that far excel my own, and of bearing
“testimony to the wonderful courage
“and dexterity of these Nimrods, in-
“ stead of continually relating anecdotes
“ of dangers in the first person, which
“cannot be more disagreeable to the
“ reader than to the narrator.”

But, after all, we are dwelling on the
sporting side of the book until readers
will begin to question our opening re-
marks ; so, leaving them to explore its
pages for encounters with elephant and
buffalo, rhinoceros and crocodile, we will
glance at the latest of the Nile explorers
in one or two of the other characters in
which he appears, and, we are bound to
add (whether we agree or not with his

148

opinions), always as a brave, modest,
God-fearing Englishman, and just the
sort of national representative we should
rejoice to see appearing for our country
in all half-civilized or barbarous lands.

First, then, as a naturalist. We are
not, indeed, competent to test him
scientifically, nor is this book probably
a fair specimen of what he could do in
this direction. But, for ordinary readers,
there is a freshness and keenness about
his observations on beasts and birds
which almost brings up the treasured
memory of one’s first perusal of Water-
ton’s “ Wanderings.”

In his first book, “The Rifle and
Hound in Ceylon,” published in 1854,
though the work of a very young man
bent chiefly upon sport, there are many
passages which prove the author to have
been even then far removed from the
sportsman of the Gordon Cumming
school. We might cite particularly his
detailed description of the Ceylon ele-
phant, whose physiology and habits he
had studied with the eye of a naturalist.
In the present volume the same trait
occurs in matured form, the natural
historian and observer having gained
ground on the slayer of bersts. Here,
too (pp. 530-536), he gives a detailed de-
scription of the African elephant, point-
ing out the characteristic differences
between it and his old friends in Cey-
lon; and the. book teems throughout
with striking sketches of animal life.
The passage on the order in which birds
of prey invariably arrive when large
game has been shot, to claim their share,
is one of the most graphic in description
and convincing in argument which we
have met with this many a day. Sir
Samuel’s belief is, that these birds are
directed by sight and not by scent.
They soar, he is convinced, at different
altitudes, but within sight of each other,
so that the downward rush of a buzzard
on the spot where prey is stricken acts
like a telegraphic signal ; not only toall
other buzzards, but to the vultures on
the next highest plane, and to the giant
Marabou stork, Abou Seen, “ father of
the beak,” who is soaring at an enormous
height again above them, forming, as he

“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.”

seems to do, the loftiest of the regular
strata of birds of prey soaring in circles,
with which the African atmosphere is
alive. No one, we think, can doubt
that he is right as to these birds of prey,
but the theory is no help to us in the
face of that marvel which has puzzled
most Englishmen with a turn for natu-
ral history ever since they were old
enough to keep a pigeon, viz. how does
a young carrier find his way home when
you take him out in a basket ten or
twelve miles for the first time, and
throw him up in the air? We should
like to hear Sir Samuel on this point.
Does not one feel that it would be
worth while to start off at once for the
Soudan, did the fates permit, on the
chance of meeting such a hunting-party
as this?—“A number of the common
“black and white stork were hunting
“grasshoppers and other insects, and
“ mounted on the back of each stork
“ was a large copper-coloured flycatcher,
“ which perched like a rider on his horse,
“kept a bright look-out for insects
“which from its elevated position it
“ could easily discern on the ground. I
* watched them for some time. When-
“ever the storks perceived a grass-
“ hopper or other winged insect, they
“chased them on foot; but if they
“missed their game, the flycatchers
“ darted from their backs and flew after
“ the insects like falcons, catching them
“ in their beaks, and then returning to
“their steeds to look out for another
“ opportunity.” We are not prepared,
however, to say that our yearning to
watch wild creatures would have made
us care to have shared our traveller’s
quarters at Mr. Petherick’s. Here he
and Lady Baker slept in the verandah
of a court-yard, in which, besides do-
mestic animals, were two leopards (just
caught, and on their way to our Zoo-
logical Gardens), two wild boars, a
hyena, two ostriches, and a dog-faced
baboon, who won Sir 8.’s heart by taking
an especial fancy to him because he wore
a beard like that of Mr. Petherick, the
baboon’s master. The leopards were

constantly breaking their chains, and
attacking the dogs and cow; the hyena

a

oo

sous ea

Pe oer at

occasionally got loose; “and the wild
“ boars destroyed their mud wall, and
“nearly killed one of my Tokrooris
“ during the night by carving him like
“ a scored leg of pork with their tusks.”
The ostriches seem to have confined
their civilities to inviting themselves to
meals, and clearing the table just before
Sir Samuel and his wife could sit down,
which was a needless attention on their
part, inasmuch as “one kind of food
“was as sweet as another to them:
“ they attacked a basket of white porce-
“lain beads, and swallowed them in
“ great numbers in mistake for dhurra,
“until they were driven off.” The
showman who used to travel round with
Wombwell’s Menagerie in our youth is
the only person we have ever met who
would have been equal to this par-
ticular situation. Curiously enough,
Sir Samuel's evidence as to the ostrich’s
appetite and digestion makes us almost
doubt whether there was not some
scintilla of truth, after all, in the asser-
tion with which our old acquaintance
was in the habit of winding up his tale
as to the ostrich’s habits, and the diffi-
culty of staying his stomach with any
ordinary fare, “ So we feeds un wi’ broken
glass bottles and second-hand sawdust.”

The mention of the Tokroori whose
leg was scored by the consul’s boar, re-
minds one of another of Sir Samuel's
characters. In the last few years he
has come forward on several occasions
to volunteer his testimony as to the
negro race. We need scarcely refer to
his former work, the “ Albert N’yanza,”
and to his letters during the Jamaica
troubles, in which he went all lengths
with the Anthropological Society. In
the present volume, again, he loses no
opportunity of repeating these convic-
tions. “Central Africa,” he sets out by
saying in the Preface, “is peopled by a
“hopeless race of savages, for whom
“there is no hope of civilization.” And
yet, whenever it comes to facts and not
opinions, Sir Samuel’s testimony tells
the other way. The only negroes we
meet with in the book are these Tok-
rooris, “a tribe of Mahometan negroes,
very powerful and courageous,” six of

“ The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.” 149

whom he hires for five months to accom-
pany him, in preference to Arabs (p.
z74), and Masara, a poor negro slave
woman, also hired by him to grind corn,
and of whom he speaks in even affec-
tionate terms, “Masara (Sarah) was a
“ dear old creature, the most willing and
“obliging specimen of a good slave,”
and full, as the fullowing narrative
(p. 215) shows, of those “ holy feelings
of affection” which Sir Samuel allows
are still possessed by some slaves. As
to the Tokrooris, the account of their
country and habits seems to us to lead
to the irresistible conclusion that they
are far nearer civilization than any Arab
race he encountered, and indeed he him-
self contrasts them favourably with
these. ‘While the Arab may be seen
‘‘Jazily stretched under the shade of a
“tree, the Tokroori will be spinning
“cotton, or working at something that
“ will earn a few piastres.” During his
march, his own servants employed all
their spare time in making sandals,
whips, bracelets, and other articles, out
of elephant’s and buffalo’s hide, which
they afterwards sold in the bazaar at
Gallabat. Their country, though lying
on the frontier, or Debatable Land, and
so doubly taxed both by Egyptians and
Abyssinians, grows cotton and wheat,
and “their gardens are kept with ex-
treme neatness.” Indeed, Sir Samuel
himself allows (p. 512) that, were the
Tokroori “assured of protection and
“moderate taxation, he would quickly
“change the character of those fertile
“lands, now uninhabited except by wild
“animals,” and where, according to his
own showing, cotton to clothe the world
might be grown with ease. Notwith-
standing his protest that the Tokrooris
are a bright exception to the negro race
generally, we cannot but regard Sir
Samuel as a most favourable witness for
poor Quashee, and we doubt how Mr.
Carlyle or the Anthropological will
enjoy this voluntary evidence of their
favourite champion.

Besides his other avocations and
accomplishments, Sir Samuel practised
as a physician and surgeon with no
small success amongst the Arabs, setting

150 “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.”

broken limbs, and prescribing for all
kinds of disease. ‘The unbounded ascen-
dency which he gained over the intes-
tines of the men was due, we are bound
to admit, to Holloway’s pills, and his
testimony as to their value goes some
way towards clearing up a mystery
almost as great as that of the Nile
sources. ‘The fair sex, however, seem to
havé troubled him sadly. Many of
them, who were barren, insisted on his
prescribing for them some medicine
which would remove this, the great re-
proach on Eastern women from the
time of Sarah downwards. “ It was in
“vain to deny them. I therefore gave
“them a small dose of ipecacuanha, with
“the comforting word to an Arab, ‘ In-
“shallah’ (‘ If it shall please God’). At
“the same time I explained that the
“ medicine was of little value.”

Sir Samuel Baker would, no doubt,
renounce any claim to be looked upon
as a missionary, but even in this capacity
he would seem to have worked in his
downright common-sense fashion, and in
his own pages we have the means of
comparing his labours with those of
certain regular practitioners. There is a
mixture of comedy and pathos in his
sketch of the two missionaries—a Ger-
man, and an English blacksmith—whom
he encountered at Gallabat, on their
road to King Theodore’s capital, bent
on the conversion of the Abyssinian
Jews. Both of them were ill of fever,
of which he cured them. Neither of
them could speak a word of any Eastern
language, but they had a medicine chest,
purchased cheaply from the effects of a
defunct doctor at Cairo, full of useful
drugs and deadly poisons, in unlabelled
bottles, and a large assortment of Bibles
in unknown tongues. “Thus,” as Sir
Samuel comments, “ provided with a
“medicine chest which they did not
“comprehend, and with a number
“of Bibles printed in the Tigré lan-
“ guage which they did not understand,
“they were prepared to convert the
* Jews who could not read. The Bibles
* were to be distributed as the Word of
“God, like seed thrown by the way-
* side ; and the medicines were, I trust,

“ to be locked up in the chest, as their
“ distribution might have been fatal to
“ the poor Jews.” All he could do for
them, on finding their faces set like flint
in higher matters, was to label their
poisons, weigh out doses of their medi-
cines, and to give them wholesome ad-
vice as to healthy camping-spots and
bad water. And so they went on their
way, rejoicing probably that they were
found worthy to suffer, and likely enough
to add to the already too numerous army
of mistaken martyrs. On the other hand,
Sir Samuel himself preached to the Arab
fakeers, with whom he established rela-
tions of the most satisfactory kind, ser-
mons which “ rejoiced the good fakeers,”
and led them to the conclusion that the
differences between them and their
strange visitor were but slight, and that
the root of the matter was common to
both. We may refer readers who are
curious as to the teaching by which such
results were obtained to the discourse
delivered at Wat-el-Negur, which they
will find at page 267, and which is well
worth perusal. Neither Sir Samuel nor
the fakeers appear to be sticklers for the
letter of the law, as we judge from the
testimony of his Arab hunters, whom he
interrogated as to their practice of eating
freely of wild boar whenever they could
procure that dainty. In reply to his
question, what their fakeer would say if
he were aware of such a breach of the
Koran, “ Oh,” they replied, “we have
“already asked his permission, as we
“‘ are often severely pressed for food in
“the jungles. He says, ‘If you have
“the Koran, in your hand and no pig,
“ you are forbidden to eat pork ; but if
** you have the pig in your hand and no
“ Koran, you had better eat what God
“ has given you.’”

We trust by this time that the most
matter-of-fact reader, however bent on
the acquisition of useful knowledge,
will have come to the conclusion that
our author is a humorist, as well as a
most instructive and delightful com-
panion in other ways. We commend
such persons to extend their studies
in this direction by reading the em-
barrassing interview between Sir Samuel

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So & Boh owe eB bk oo ow ee

c~)

“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.”

and the slave-woman Barraké in the
presence of Lady Baker, when it first
dawned upon her that her freedom had
been purchased; and the discomfiture
of the second minstrel who came from
the robber-sheik Mek Nimmur, who
holds the border land between Upper
Egypt and Abyssinia. We must con-
tent ourselves here with one more
quotation before closing our desultory
yleanings in one of the best books of
entertaining travel, apart from its more
serious interest, which it has been our
good fortune to come across in the
course of a somewhat extensive reading
in this direction. ‘“ Africa may have
* some charms, but it certainly is rather
“a trying country. In the rainy weather
“ we have the impenetrable high grass,
“the flies, and the mud: when those
“ entertainments are over and the grass
“has ripened, every variety of herb
‘and bush is more or less armed with
“lances, swords, daggers, bayonets,
“‘ knives, spikes, needies, pins, fish-
“* hooks, hay-forks, harpoons, and every
“abomination in the shape of points,
“ which render a leather suit indis-
“ pensable to a sportsman even in this
* hot climate.”

We have no space to dwell on the
vivid pictures of Arab and desert life
with which the book abounds, or on
Sir Samuel’s plans for damming the
. Nile, and so robbing the Mediterranean
uf the invaluable yearly deposits which
are only now silting up the mouth of
M. Lesseps’ canal, and which might be
made the means, he thinks, of extending
indefinitely the area of fertility in Lower
Egypt. He is convinced that the sand
of the desert is to be beaten, and we
believe him, and should not be sur-
prised to see a good stroke of the work
done in our own day. Neither can we
collect for the benefit of future travellers
any of the invaluable advice to persons
about to explore in the Tropics.

It is somewhere about a quarter of
a century ago since the writer's boyish
imagination was first excited by the
world-old riddle of the Sources of the
Nile. Herodotus was by no means an
unmixed pleasure in those days, when

151

penalties of one kind or another
attached to the careless rendering of
any word of that dear old gossip. But
in those charming little episodes, where
he wanders into the bye-paths of
legend, hedging himself, as he cants
out one after another of those ancient
canards, against the sneers of the
Athenian Saturday Reviewer, with his
“tuoi per od moréov,” there dwelt a
flavour for ingenuous youth which even
the shadow of the birch could not spoil.
To him, wandering in Egypt to collect
the materials for his History, the pro-
blem presented itself not more freshly
than to ourselves 2,000 years later.
“As for the nature of this river,” he
writes in the Euterpe, “I could not,
“ either from the priests or from others,
“collect any certain opinion, I did
“not fail to inquire of them why it
“ was that the Nile, coming down just
“ at the summer solstice, swells during
“the hundred days, and then having
“completed that period retires and
“ diminishes its streams, so that it is
“ low throughout the winter, and does
“ not overflow till the summer solstice.”
No Egyptian could give him any expla-
nation, but “certain Greeks,” wishing
to seem very wise, “ offered him three—
“viz. the Etesian winds, which blew
“ the stream back, the notion that the
“ Nile flows from the ocean which flows
“round the whole earth, and the
“ melting of snows,” which last Hero-
dotus holds to be “the most plausible,
but furthest from the truth,” and pro-
ceeds to refute triumphantly. What
his own opinion was “on this obscure
subject,” which he then proceeds to
avow, though we have perused it
often with serious desire to know, we
are to this day quite incompetent to
say, but there it is in the 24th chapter
of the Euterpe for any one to consult
who is so disposed. We only remember
that the sun managed the business for
Lower Egypt somehow, when, after
“ being driven from his usual course by

‘“the tempests during the winter, he

“ reaches the upper parts of Libya.”
But it was not Herodotus’s attempts at
explaining the mystery, but the great

152 An Unsolved Mystery.

problem itself, which seized on one’s
imagination, and prepared us in later
years to read eagerly all books of travel
in those parts in hopes of, a solution.
And now at last the solution has come ;
the question has been answered, not
tentatively, or argumentatively, but
beyond all manner of doubt. “ The
“ mystery of the Nile has been dis-
“ pelled,” writes Sir S. Baker; ‘ we
“ have proved that the equatorial lakes
“ supply the main stream, but that the
“ inundations are caused by the sudden
“rush of waters from the torrents of
“ Abyssinia in July, August, and Sep-
“tember; and that the soil washed
“ down by the floods of the Atbara is
“ at the present moment silting up the
“ mouths of the Nile, and thus slowly
“but steadily forming a delta beneath
“the waters of the Mediterranean.”
Yes, true enough, Sir Samuel has the
right to speak tlius. He and his com-
peers have dispelled the mystery, one
amongst the many which haunted us in
leisure hours from our first acquaintance
with Herodotus down to Speke and
Grant’s return ; and for the life of us we
ean scarcely help a feeling of regret
notwithstanding all the jubilations of
the Geographical Society. We doubt
whether our boys will ever get half
the pleasure out of the accurate inform-
ation as to the Albert and Victoria
N’yanza Lakes and the Abyssinian
tributaries which we, as boys, sucked
out of the idea of the great flood loaded

with plenty, rolling down in kingly
volume and majesty from distant tro-
pics, where civilized man had never set
foot, through thirsty deserts, and over-
flowing its banks when it was bound to
be at its lowest, laughing at man’s puny
efforts to understand or coutrol it.

Well, the Nile has no more secrets
now to deliver up than the St. Law-
rence, and we feel perhaps a little flat
in presence of the solution—as if some-
body had uncovered the bottom of the
sea, and let us look at all the treasures
of the mighty deep, to discover after all
little more than mud and shells. The
generation to which the writer belongs
may be pardoned for parting with some
twinge of regret from the mystery
which has shrouded the great stream of
Moses and the Pharaohs since Adam
delved and Eve span (if she ever did
spin). But as Englishmen they cannot
but be proud of those who were boys
with them, and in the short inter-
vening years, by endurance and sagacity
rarely equalled and never surpassed,
have drawn aside for ever the veil which
hung over the sources of the Nile. We
and our children shall hold the names
of Speke, Grant, and Baker in well-
earned honour, and shall trust that, while
mysteries remain to be solved or hard
and dangerous enterprises to be faced in
this tough old world, there never shall
be wanting men of such true English
fibre to carry on the work—inshal/ah,
if it shall please God.

AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY.

BY EDWARD DICEY.

On the 14th of last October, two men
were hanged in London as murderers.
About the guilt of the one there could
be no manner of question; the other
died protesting his innocence, as he had
done from the time when he was
arrested ; and his last act, when the
rope was actually fastened round his
neck, was to gasp out that, “as a dying

man, he swore he never did the deed.”
How far that statement was true or false
is never likely to be known in this
world. Owing to circumstances con-
nected with my profession as a journal-
ist, I followed the case very attentively,
as I have followed many others ; and I
think I may say that I had unusual
opportunities for forming an opinion

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An Unsolved Mystery. 153

concerning it. Yet I can truly state
that I have even now no positive belief
one way or the other, as to whether
this man committed the crime for
which he suffered death on the gallows ;
and, in writing on his story, I have
no wish to try and prove that a
judicial murder has been committed by
the execution of an innocent man.
There are two reflections, however, con-
nected with our system of trying capital
crimes, the truth of which is more and
more impressed upon me by every trial
for murder which I have occasion to
follow. The first is, that our peculiar
mode of conducting such trials tells
very cruelly in many instances against
innocent men: the second is that, if a
man, rightly or wrongly, is once sentenced
to death, the execution or non-execution
of the sentence depends upon a number
of considerations, which have little or
no connexion with the mere fact of
his guilt or innocence. Believing, as I
do, that the course of the proceedings
which ended six weeks ago in front of
Newgate illustrates the correctness of
these views of mine, I wish to call
public attention to a very remarkable case
which, from a variety of circumstances,
never received the notice that was justly
due to it.

There is a fashion about murders as
about most other things in the world.
There might be an appendix written to
the famous essay on “ Murder considered
as one of the Fine Arts,” showing
the conditions which a murder must
fulfil in order to become the talk of the
day. But, even after the most careful
analysis, the author would be compelled
to own that luck was after all the most
important element in the problem.
Under our present system of adminis-
tering justice, it is of the utmost import-
ance to any man liable to be sentenced
to death, that the crime of which he
stands accused should be one of the
topics of the day ; and I think I may
safely say, as a matter of mere calculation,

that a man who commits a murder of sin- °

gular brutality, which attracts attention,
has.a better chance of escaping capital
punishment than the man who commits

a murder of far less atrocity, which
passes almost unheeded by the public.
Now the case which is the subject of
my remarks fell dead, if I may use such
a term, almost from the beginning ; and
in consequence, in order to make the
moral of my story intelligible, I must
give the main features of the so-called
“‘ Limehouse Mystery.”

The actors, the locale, the scenery of
this tragedy of real life were very sordid,
and low, and vulgar; and this circum-
stance contributed to the lack of interest
evinced in its development; but the
passions which formed the groundwork
of the drama were the same as those
which have instigated all the most cele-
brated crimes recorded in romance or
poetry. Let me tell the story as briefly
and as decorously as I can. About two
years ago a couple of young girls drifted
up to London in the way so many
hundreds and thousands of girls do year
by year. Their father had been an
artisan in Liverpool, who had left his
home in search of employment, and has
not been heard of since. Their mother
was dead ; and, a report having come to
Liverpool that Oakes (this was the name
of the father) had been seen about the
London Docks, apparently doing well,
the two girls set off to join him in the
great city. They tramped all the way
on foot, sleeping night by night at the
workhouses along the road; but, on
arriving in London, they could find no
trace of their missing parent. Oddly
enough, perhaps, they did not go on
the streets, as might have been expected.
Somehow or other they got employment
as domestic servants. The eldest of the
girls, Agnes Oakes, was engaged as a
sort of half maid-of-all-work, half bar-
maid, in a tavern at Limehouse. While
there she made the acquaintance of a
lighterman, John Wiggins, who fre-
quented the tavern. He was thirty-five,
and she was eighteen; and, to judge
from his personal appearance, he was a
man singularly unlikely to have inspired
a very violent passion in a very young
girl. However, the acquaintance be-
came a very close one ; and, after some
months of what I suppose would be

154

called keeping company, Wiggins took
Agnes Oakes to live with him at his
father’s house as his mistress. The real
character of such relationships is always
a hard matter for strangers to deter-
mine ; and the trial elicited very little
with regard to the history of Wiggins
or the woman previous to the commis-
sion of the alleged murder. The man
himself declared that the poor girl had
been a woman of loose life before he
knew her. Agnes Oakes, on the other
hand, was stated by one of the wit-
nesses to have declared that she had
been seduced by Wiggins under pro-
mise of marriage. In France, and as I
deem rightly, the exact state of the re-
lations between these two persons would
have been elucidated by all evidence
that could possibly be discovered, in
order to throw light upon the question
on which the whole matter turned—
whether she died by her own hand, or
by that of her paramour.

Morally, I own, I think too great
stress may easily be laid on the question
whether Wiggins seduced the girl or
not. Nobody can be acquainted with
the ethical code of the lower working-
classes without being aware that the
fact of a woman’s living with a man
before marriage is not reckoned any
heinous disgrace, and that, so long as
children are not born, the man is con-
sidered free to break off the connexion
without incurring any heavy censure
from the public opinion of the class to
which he belongs. The imputation that
Wiggins had seduced the woman under
promise of marriage, and then refused to
fulfil his promise, told very unfavourably
against him in the opinion of the public ;
and I quite admit that he was a man for
whom it was impossible to feel much of
sympathy. But the crime for which he
was tried and hanged was not heartless
seduction, but wilful murder; and yet,
illogical as it may appear, if he had been
allowed to show on his trial that the
woman had no particular claim upon him,
beyond the fact that she had lived with
him for some time, I believe it would
have greatly increased his chance of es-
caping death on the charge of murder.

An Unsolved Mystery.

As far as could be learnt, Wiggins
was a respectable, industrious man
enough ; and neither the morality of
the neighbourhood nor the sensibilities
of his parents were outraged by his
bringing home a woman to keep house
for him who was not his wife. On what
terms this semi-attached couple lived
together is not very clear, and can only
be gathered from the irregular hearsay
evidence given at the preliminary in-
vestigations. The union, however, was
not a happy one. The girl, as the
prisoner said to a witness without a
suspicion of sarcasm, “ did not turn out
as well as he expected ;” there were
quarrels about money; and the man
resolved to break off the connexion.
The reason he alleged for so doing, that
Oakes had raised money on the pawn-
ticket of his watch without his know-
ledge, was probably a mere excuse ; but,
in the rank of life to which the man
belonged, the feeling about such bits
and sticks of property as the poor
possess is so intense that it is difficult
for persons in a higher rank to estimate
its force.

Be this as it may, it is certain that,
after Wiggins had lived with Oakes at
his father’s for some six months, he gave
her notice to quit. How the woman
bore the intimation, whether she used
threats of revenge, or whether she in her
turn was threatened by the man—all
points bearing most closely on the ulti-
mate issue which the jury had to de-
cide—were matters on which no informa-
tion was adduced at the trial. All we
know is, that finally the man and woman
agreed to part company on Wednesday,
the 24th of last July.

Partings are always painful ; and the
lighterman acted in very much the same
way as if he had held a commission in
the Line, and the scene of separation had
been in St. John’s Wood. He resolved
apparently to make the last hours as
short as possible. He did not come
home till near one on the Wednesday
morning: he had to leave for his work
by daybreak the same morning; and
therefore he was not likely to have much
of her reproaches to listen to.

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An Unsolved Mystery.

So far the facts I have stated are
tolerably certain—they were assumed by
the prosecution, and not disputed by the
defence. What ensued after Wiggins
went home for the last time is not, and
never can be, known with any degree of
certainty. About five o’clock in the
morning an alarm was raised in front of
the house where the Wigginses lived,
though by whom was not very clearly
ascertained. The prisoner at any rate
appeared in the street with blood stream-
ing from his throat, and calling for assist-
ance. As soon as a man passing by came
up, Wiggins stated that his wife had
cut his throat and cut her own, and was
dead. To this story he adhered, I should
add, without variation, to the last. The
police were called in; the man was
taken to a hospital, where his wounds
were dressed, and found not to be dan-
gerous ; and a hasty examination was
made of the room where the crime had
been committed. The girl Oakes was
dead, and about the cause of her death
there could be no manner of question,
as her throat was cut very nearly from
ear to ear. Her head was resting on a
pillow, and a chair was placed over her
face. The inmates of the house, how-
ever, and the neighbours had crowded
into the room ; and, amidst the excite-
ment which prevailed, very little reliance
could be placed one way or the other on
the various statements as to the position
in which the dead woman was lying
when the different witnesses entered the
room. <A knife was found on the floor,
and the carpet was stained with blood-
marks. The question at once arose
whether the woman had committed sui-
cide, as Wiggins declared, or had been
murdered by the man himself ; and, from
the first, the suspicions of the police
pointed to the latter alternative.

It would be unnecessary to go through
the various stages of the inquiry which
issued on the detection of the crime.
As soon as Wiggins had recovered suf-
ficiently from his wounds to attend in

Court, he was brought before the -

coroner, and then, after having been
warned not to criminate himself, he
made the following statement :—

155

“T wish to say that on the night I left his
house, at a quarter to one, the landlord gave
me a pint of beer to take home. He can

rove that I was sober. I went home, and

nocked at the door. Agnes Oakes opened
the door for me. I went in. I sat down,
and offered her some of the beer. She would
not have any of it. I drank it, and ate some
of the kidney. I said I would not go to
bed, as I had to go out at a quarter to
four the next morning. I lay down on the
hearth-rug in front of the fireplace. I placed
the jacket under my head. I fell asleep. At
a little after three my mother came in and
called me. I went downstairs to see what
o’clock it was. It was twenty minutes past
four when I went downstairs. Agnes told me
it was a quarter past. 1 went to lie down
again. Agnes came to my side, and on
her knees said, ‘Oh, do forgive me!’ I
said, ‘I can’t.’ I then lay down and went to
sleep. I was awoke by a tickling in my throat.
I put up my hand and caught her ; and after
a little time I got her hand away. My left
thumb was cut, and I got away and went into
my father’s room. I said, ‘ Agnes has cut my
throat.’ I then heard mother say that Agnes
had cut her own throat. I then went into the
room. I saw Agnes in the corner of the room.
The knife was near her. I picked it up. She
was sitting up against the wall. The chair
was close to her. I took up a pair of drawers
and put them to my throat.”

Now as against the truth of this story
there were several points on which con-
siderable stress was laid, and justly laid.
In the first place, there were several
indications of a struggle having taken
place in the room ; in the second, things
looked as if the body had been arranged
before the alarm was given ; in the third
place, people living near the spot de-
clared they heard cries of murder coming
from Wiggins’s house about two in the
morning ; in the fourth place, the
medical evidence went to prove, though
not conclusively, that death had ensued
some hours before the body was first.
examined ; and, lastly and chiefly, the
wound from which the woman had died
was such as it was not thought possible a
woman could have inflicted with her own
hand. The prosecution, therefore, starte«!
the theory that Wiggins had cut th-
woman’s throat, and had then cut hi»
own in order to divert suspicion. Which
of these two theories is the true one
neither I nor anybody else could venture
to assert ; which evenisthe most probable
one I should be sorry to declare with any

156 An Unsolved Mystery.

degree of confidence. Dut I think all
who study the evidence dispassionately
will come to my conclusion : that there
was not sufficient ground taadopt either
hypothesis as clearly established. The
coroner went into a good deal of irre-
levant statement about the tempter
who seduced his victim to her ruin;
yet the jury returned an open verdict,
declaring that Agnes Oakes died from
a wound to her throat, but that who
inflicted that wound there was not
sufficient evidence to show. This ver-
dict, as I believe, was the only one which
could safely and honestly be given ; and,
if the jury at the Central Crimirfal
Court had been furnished with the same
evidence as that laid before the coroner’s
jury, the result must, I think, have been
the same.

On the coroner’s verdict being found,
Wiggins was brought before the Thames
Police-court on a charge of wilful mur-
der, and was most justly committed to
trial, as there was sufficient y ima facie
evidence to demand a rigid investigation
of the whole matter. On the 25th of
September the trial came on before Mr.
Justice Lush. It is natural enough
Wigzins’s relations should assert, as they
do, that he had not a fair trial, and that
his case was ill-conducted ; but I doubt
whether there is any actual ground for
the assertion. Everything, I believe,
was conducted strictly according to the
rules of our criminal procedure. My
complaint is that those rules told very
heavily against the due administration
of justice. All our criminal procedure
seems to me to be based upon the idea
that a trial is a game between the pro-
secutor and the prisoner, in which both
sides are handicapped, so a3 to place
them on equal terms. [I cannot well
conceive a system under which any
guilty man has a fairer chance of escap-
ing punishment ; but I know of no sys-
tem less calculated to elicit the truth, or,
in that way, more hard upon an inno-
cent man, whose sole object it must
be that the whole truth should be
known. The assumption of our courts
is that it is of far less importance to
bring out the whole facts in any par-

ticular case than to uphold the regula-
tions, which are conceived as calculated,
truly or not, to maintain the general
equilibrium between the accuser and the
accused. For instance, in the present
case Wiggins was nervously anxious to
tell his own story to the jury, and to
explain different circumstances which
he saw told against him in the course of
the trial; but on every occasion he was
stopped by the Court, because he was
defended by counsel. In the same way,
if there were any people living who
could throw any light upon the true
story of the crime, they were Wiggins’s
father and mother, who had lived in the
house with him and the girl, who slept
in the next room, and who, if the sur-
mise of the prosecution was true, had
probably rendered him assistance in con-
cocting the story which was to enable him
to escape the punishment of his crime,
If, as the prosecution assumed, the mur-
der had been committed at two o'clock,
and had been attended with such strug-
gles and screams as to have attracted the
notice of people living some distance
away, it was impossible the father and
mother, who slept close to the prisoner,
should not have been aware of the fact.
Yet these two most important witnesses
were never summoned on the part either
of the prosecution or the defence. The
reasons for their not being called were
obvious enough. The prosecution knew
that their evidence would be inten-
tionally favourable to the prisoner, and
that to try and shake by cross-examina-
tion the evidence of a father and mother
endeavouring to save their son from the
gallows would create a prejudice in the
minds of the jury. On the other hand,
the defence knew that their evidence, if
favourable, would have comparatively
little weight, from their connexion with
the prisoner, and, if any discrepancies
could be discovered in it, the effect would
be doubly damaging to their client. I
do not doubt each side were right in
declining to call these witnesses ; but I
humbly think they ought to have been
called upon in the interest, not of the
prisoner or the prosecution, but of the
public, whose sole object is that the

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An Unsolved Mystery.

truth should be ascertained. As it was,
the three people who could possibly
have enabled the jury to a:certain the
real truth—the prisoner, his father, and
his mother—were not allowed to give
such evidence as they were willing to
produce.

I know it may be said that the evi-
dence of the parents could not have been
really favourable to the prisoner, or else
they would have been called by his
counsel. If his story, however, was
substantially true, it followed necessarily
that no testimony his parents could
adduce could absolutely establish its
truth, because, according to that story,
they knew nothing aout the matter
till he woke them up after the woman
had tried to cut his throat. And,
whether wisely or not, the counsel for
the defence had resolved to call no
witnesses at all. It would be absurd
for me to venture my own opinion on
such a matter in opposition to that of a
counsel so experienced in criminal trials
as Mr. Ribton; and I can easily sce
there were many strong grounds which
weighed in favour of his taking the
negative line of defence he ultimately
adopted. The story of the prisoner,
which would have been cited against
him if his counsel had based his defence
on any other hypothesis, precluded all
possibility of direct and positive cor-
roboration by independent testimony ;
and yet, failing positive proof, this line
of defence was a very dangerous one to
adopt. To confirm his client's story,
Mr. Ribton would have had to assume
that the unhappy young girl had been
so maddened by the heartlessness and
cruelty of the man who, whether truly or
falsely, was supposed to have seduced her,
that in desperation she had first attempted
to kill him, and then had taken her own
life; and, the more he dwelt on this
view, the more he was likely to alienate
from his client the sympathies of the
jury. Moreover, he conceived, as almost
all criminal lawyers do, that it was

of immense importance to secure the -

last word in appealing to the jury ; and
yet, if he had called a single witness as
to character, he would have given the

157

prosecution the right to reply to his
address—a right which, according to the
rules of the game of law, would have
infallibly been exercised. Besides this,
the duty of the counsel was not to prove
that his client was not guilty of murder,
but to secure his complete acquittal.
Now it was, to say the least, a tenable
supposition that the man had killed the
woman, and yet had only committed
an act of manslaughter. Supposing that
a violent quarrel had arisen between
these two, that the woman had attacked
the man in her mad fury, and that he,
either in self-defence or in a sudden
access of passion, had inflicted the wound
which caused her death, he would have
committed a very grave offence, but he
most assuredly would not have com-
mitted murder with malice prepense.
This was, I fancy, the view ultimately
taken by the jury of their own accord ;
but it was never submittel to them by
either side ; and th , evidence and argu-
ments both for and against the hypo-
thesis were never laid before them.
Acting on his judgment, Mr. Ribton
determined to re'y solely upon the
weakness of the case fur the Crown.
The course is always, I think, a danger-
ous one, and it proved fatally so in the
present instance.

The prosecution laid a distinct and
intelligible explanation of the tragedy
before the jury. The defence offered no
inlepenlent version of its own, and
contented itself with pointing out, more
or less successfully, certain inconsisten-
cies in the statements of the witnesses
for the prosecution. These inconsisten-
cies, however, were not greater than
might have been expected in the stories
of ignorant persons under circumstances
of great excitement: and indeed it is
quite possible that every one of the
witnesses for the Crown spoke what
they honestly believed to be the truth,
and yet that the prisoner was not guilty
of the crime imputed to him. I am told
that there were several witnesses forth-
coming who could have proved the girl
had talked of committing suicide ; and
the friends of John Wiggins naturally
blame Mr. Ribton for not having called

158 An Unsolved Mystery.

them. Put though I hold, in the
interest of truth, all witnesses who could
throw light upon the affair ought to have
been heard in court, yet, as long as
justice is conducted on our present
principles, I am ready to believe Mr.
Ribton exercised a sound discretion in
not calling witnesses whose evidence
could not have absolutely exculpated
the prisoner, and would certainly have
increased the prejudice against him.
The man’s appearance was not in his
favour. There was a hang-dog air about
his face, a nervous excitability in his
manner, a sort of hungry look in his
eyes, which undoubtedly did not inspire
confidence, or, I am afraid, sympathy.
The counsel obviously felt he had an
uphill job in pleading for a man
whose defence was that he had driven
a young girl under twenty to suicide
and attempted murder, and could not
make any very successful appeal to the
feelings of the jury in behalf of his
client. Still the general opinion in court
was that the jury could not possibly
convict, there was so much room for
doubt as to the fact whether a murder
had been committed at all; more espe-
cially when no possible motive could be
assigned, or even suggested, why Wig-
gins should have wilfully murdered the
woman in a way almost certain to
insure detection. The judge summed
up impartially enough, though somewhat
curtly,and after three hours’ deliberation
the jury brought in a verdict of guilty,
recommending the prisoner at the same
time most strongly to mercy, on the
ground that the crime was not pre-
meditated. It is not very difficult to
realize the state of mental confusion
which led to this singularly unsatisfac-
tory verdict. The jury were sure Wig-
gins had acted infamously toward the
deceased woman; they were by no
means sure, as nobody can be, that he
had not actually murdered her ; and so
they brought in a sentence modified in
such a form as they thought would in-
sure its not being carried into effect.
In fact, they afforded an illustration of
that illogical mode of ours of administer-
ing justice, of which some eulogists of our

national character are so unaccountably
proud. They may have blundered upon
the truth; it is equally possible they
may have blundered upon an error.
Whereas, if the whole circumstances of
the case had been laid before them—if
the prisoner had been allowed to tell
his own story, and all witnesses had
been produced in court who could throw
light on the affair, no matter whether
that light told for or against the ac-
cused—they could hardly, I think,
have blundered at all.

The great excuse to be made for the
jury is the impression under which they
laboured, that their recommendation to
mercy would certainly be attended with
effect. The common feeling was that,
in view of the unsatisfactory character of
the evidence, the punishment of death
would be commuted. Nor was this
expectation unreasonable. So many
convicted murderers had been reprieved
on infinitely slighter grounds, that it
seemed hardly possible this man, about
whose guilt there was so much of doubt,
should be left for execution.

There exists a very prevalent impres-
sion in the minds of the public that,
whenever a man is condemned to death,
and any doubt rests upon the correctness
of his sentence, he is sure to have a
thorough, though unofficial, investiga-
tion made into his case before judgment
is allowed to be executed. We are told
constantly that the vigilance of the
public press will secure every man
against being executed without a proper
hearing. Every now and then the press
can raise such an appeal to public feel-
ing as to secure the reprieve of a con-
demned prisoner ; but the essential con-
dition of all such appeals, if they-are to
be successful, is that they should be

made unfrequently, and only on behalf

of criminals whose case is calculated to
excite some kind of personal interest.
Somehow, neither the press nor the
public ever took up, if I may use the
word, the case of John Wiggins. The
common idea was that he was sure not
to be really hanged, and this idea dis-
couraged any great agitation on his be-
half. Parliament was not sitting. Few

ie. ~e° we tee ot ee se ie in

MH 6 =} A at LL ow A

lent

of the persons who habitually interest
themselves in such matters happened to
be in town ; and, in fact, no great pres-
sure was brought to bear upon the Home
Office. Owing to the number of crimes
of violence which had occurred through-
out the summer, the bias of the authori-
ties, reflecting as they did the tone of
public feeling, was indisposed to leniency.
Mr. Hardy had been so severely criti-
cised for remitting the capital sentence
on Wagner that he was naturally in-
clined to show that he could be firm
when occasion called for firmness ; and
also, I must fairly add, that unless he
was prepared to rescind the verdict as
unjust, he could hardly show cause for
modifying the punishment attaching to
Wiggins’s crime. If Wiggins was guilty
of murder at all, he was guilty of a most
brutal and deliberate murder ; and the
Home Secretary would probably plead
that, as the jury which had heard the evi-
dence had found the man guilty, and as
the presiding judge had expressed his
approval of the verdict, it was not for
him to reverse the solemn decision of a
competent tribunal. Moreover, I may
assume without any lack of charity that
an accidental circumstance had its
weight with the Home Office. At the
very time that Wiggins’s case was before
the public, a Frenchman, Louis Bordier,
lay under sentence of death for having
committed identically the same crime.
About Bordier’s case there was no
manner of doubt. He never attempted
to conceal his having murdered the
woman with whom he lived ; and there
was no adequate reason to question his
sanity. Yet there was a good deal about
Bordier’s case to excite sympathy. It
was clear that money and a perverted
passion had driven him to his crime,
about which there was just that tinge of
morbid romance so entirely wanting in
the case of Wiggins. Very powerful
interest was exerted on behalf of the
French criminal ; yet the Government
felt, as I think justly, that, while murder
was punished with death by our laws,
Bordier’s case was not one for the exer-
cise of mercy. I cannot but think that
this consideration turned the tide
No. 98,—voL, xvu.

An Unsolved Mystery.

159

against Wiggins. It was decided, at
any rate, that the same justice should be
dealt out to both criminals, and the same
day was appointed for their execution.

Throughout the period which inter-
vened between his sentence and his
death, Wiggins never wavered in the
assertion of his innocence. The story
which he told to the policeman who
took him to the hospital he repeated to
the last hour of his life. The assurance
that the last appeal for mercy on his
behalf had been dismissed never affected
his persistent declaration of his inno-
cence. After he had been actually
pinioned, he asked leave to say a few
words, and spoke thus :—“ What I wish
“to say is this, that I am an entirely
“* innocent man of the charge for which
«1 am here, and for what the law says
“T have done. I can assure you on my
“ dying oath that I never did it. I can
“say that with a clear conscience and
“a clear heart to the Almighty, my
“ Maker. It was her who cut my throat
“and then cut her own. On my dying
“oath that is true. I am dying inno-
“cent.” This declaration he repeated
when the halter was actually round his
neck. On the evening before execution
he wrote the following letter of farewell
to his parents :—

* Gaot or NEWGATE,
**14th day of October, 1867.

“ My pear Fatuer, Moruer, Broruers,
AND Sisters,—I write these few lines to you,
with my kindest and affectionate love to you
all. Give my love to Maria and Fanny and
all the children, Mr. and Mrs. Richardson,
Mr. Groves and his wife. Give my kindest
love to Anna and her husband, and my kind-
est love to my cousin William Few and his
wife Hannah, and his son and daughter. I
am very well in health, thanks to the —"
for His goodness and mercy towards us a

“My dear mother, I hope you are better
when you receive this letter than I heard you
were on Saturday. I never wished you good-
bye when you left me last Thursday ; but I
write now to wish you good-bye till we meet
again, and that will be in the next world,
where we shall be believed. They won’t be-
lieve us in this world. My dear father and

_mother, I hope you will put your trust and

confidence in the Almighty. I don’t think He
will see you want. I hope and trust He will
give you both health and strength to live,
that you may see it come home to our enemies

160

which you know have so falsely sworn my
poor dear life away. And that I am to go out
of this world for a thing I never done, which
you know quite well, and that is what grieves
me to my poor dear heart ahd soul, that they
shall say just what they liked, and all to be
believed. My dear father and mother, I hope
and trust that we shall all meet together in
the next world, and then we shall be believed.
They won’t believe us in this. But thanks be
to the Almighty God that I shall go out of
this world an innocent man, and that is a
t blessing for us all and our relatives and
iends. I am to go out of this world to satisfy
other people, but my poor death lays at their
doors, and I hope and hope they won’t rest
before they all own it, —— and —— especially.
So good-bye, and God bless you all.
“T remain, ;
“ Your affectionate and loving Son,
“Joun Wraains.

“Thousands of kisses to you all, and as
many times.

“* Monday evening, October the 14th, 1867.
Good-bye all, many times.”

Now it is of course possible these per-
sistent disavowals of his guilt may have
been simply due to a mad hope that
even at the very last his life might be
spared if he refused to confess. You
must take these denials for what they are
worth, remembering that such firmness
in adhering to one lie throughout, sup-
posing the statement to have been a lie, is
almost unexampled intheannalsof crime.

Early Summer.

Since Wiggins’s death, his parents have
made repeated efforts to obtain some re-
investigation of the case. They declare
that they have witnesses who can prove
that Agnes Oakes expressed to them her
intention of committing suicide ; and
though this evidence, if reliable, could
not have disproved the charge of murder,
it would go far to increase the proba-
bility that Wiggins really told the
truth about himself. Dr. Forbes Win-
slow, too, has come forward to state
that a woman might easily inflict such
a wound on herself as the prosecution
assumed could only have been inflicted
by another’s hand ; and, if this truth
could be established, it would very
nearly upset the theory on which Wig-
gins was found guilty.

The mystery, however, is never likely
to be satisfactorily solved. No future
inquiry can ever elicit the absolute truth
one way or the other. Thanks to the
anomalies of our criminal system, a man
has been convicted of a murder which it
is quite possible he never committed ;
and, thanks to the absence of any courtof
criminal-appeal, a man has been hanged
who, for aught that can ever be proved,
may have been absolutely innocent.

EARLY SUMMER.

A HYMN,

Lorp of the Hours! at this fair time
That crowns Thy summer’s genial prime,
For flower and fruit and waving plain
We bless Thy liberal hand again.

For still we hunger—still must care

For this mortality

we wear;

Yet not alone the gift of food
Demands a serious gratitude.

Was not the Outward framed by Thee
(Stooping to our infirmity),

As in a grosser mould t’ express

The fashion of the Holiest Place ?

r)

Arthurian Scotland. 161

Oh! ne’er let Reason’s fond disdain
Account Thy gift of beauty vain ;
Nor the bright season past us stream
All unennobled, like a dream.

The deep-leaved woods our sight may bless
With a green glimpse of perfectness ;

The cloudless west-—blue, violet, gold—

A sinless harmony unfold.

In broom and hyacinth and rose

The shadow of Thy vesture glows:

And swelling rind and corn-sheath riven
Foreshow the nobler fruits of heaven.

Yea, far sea-wave or forest-bird,

That laugh unseen, and sing unheard,
Give semblance of th’ instinctive love,
Th’ illimitable joy above.

Yet, lest Thy gift an idol be,

: O may Thy Spirit ours make free,
Still calling toward th’ eternal sphere
By eye not seen, not heard by ear.

Nor let us gaze the seasons through,
Careless Thy graver tasks to do ;
Sky, field, and wave, be only sweet
As work and contemplation meet.

Thy human plants with summer sway

So ripen toward th’ ingathering-day !
Then, Death’s transforming winter o’er,
< To new, nor mortal, growth restore.

C. M.

ARTHURIAN SCOTLAND.

BY J. 8. STUART GLENNIE, M.A. F.S.A. ETO,

‘* Sopra la Scozia ultimamente sorse, “Certain it is that there are two Celtio—

Dove la Selva Caledonia appare, we may perhaps say two Cymric—localities in

| ns ” ° - - » which the legends of Arthur and Merlin have
Gran cose in essa gia fece Tristano, been deeply implanted, and to this day remain

Lancilotto, Galasso, Arti, e Galvano ; living traditions cherished by the ntry of

” ta . . ad these two countries, and that neither of these

Restano ancor di piu d’una lor prova is Wales, or Britain west of the Severn. It

Li monumenti e li trofei pomposi.” is in Brittany, and in the old Cumbrian king-

Antosro, Orl. Fur. c. iv. dom south of the Firth of Forth, that
legends of Arthur and Merlin have taken root
In his essay on “Merlin the Enchanter 24 flourished. . . . The original locality of the

and Merlin the Bard,’ Mr. Nash thus ons ae ao ae ise See Se eater

writes :— mances is probably the Cumbrian region taken
m2

162

in its widest extent,—from the Firths of Forth
and Clyde southward and westward along the
borders of the Northumbrian kingdom, in
which the famous exploits of the British
Cymric struggle with the Northumbrian An-
gles became the theme of a native minstrelsy,
transplanted into Brittany by the refugees
from the Saxon Conquest, and moulded into
the romances with which we have been made
acquainted by the Norman Trouvéres.”

And so, Professor Pearson, though he
makes the historical Arthur sovereign of
a territory in the south-west of England,
of which Camelot or Cadbury, in Somer-
setshire, was the capital, maintains that
“ History only knows him as the petty
“‘prinee of a Devonian principality,
“ whose wife, the Guinevere of romance,
“ was carried off by Maelgoum of North
“ Wales, and scarcely recovered by
“ treaty after a year’s fighting,” asks :—

“ Now, assuming Arthur’s history to become
first extensively popular in the twelfth century,
who are most likely to take it up and
identify it with localities in their own neigh-
bourhood, the Saxons or Saxonized settlers in
Devonia, or the Welsh and Picts of Galloway ?!
Surely the latter. Which history can best be
interpolated with strange facts, the history of
the conquered and civilized western countries,
or that of districts which long maintained
their barbarous independence? Again, the
latter.”

It was with such views as these,—not
then, however, published,—that I, very
many years ago now, turned from the
consideration of the Arthurian topo-
graphy of Wales and Brittany to the
investigation of that of Scotland ; and
I propose in this paper to give the
result of my researches and journey-
ings, with the view of bringing to-
gether, with all possible completeness,
the Scotish localities with Arthurian
names, or Arthurian traditions at-
tached to them. I shall then, first,
give a general description of what I
would call Arthurian Scotland, and
of its relation to the chief district
of Fingalian tradition. Secondly, I
shall ask my readers to accompany
me in a journey through this Arthu-
rian land, in which I shall endeavour
to point out every Arthurian locality
as yet known to me, or identified by
myself or others. Thirdly, I shall
briefly attempt to show the complete-

Arthurian Scotland.

ness and unity of these localities with
respect to the various divisions of the
Arthurian tale. And I shall, in con-
clusion, offer a few remarks on tlie
subject generally. But before closing
these introductory observations, I would
have it distinctly understood that I have
here nothing whatever to do with the
historical, and concern myself only with
the traditional, Arthur. Should it, how-
ever, turn out that Mr. Pearson is right
in contending for Arthur's historical
reality, and in affirming that, as an his-
torical personage, he belonged to the
south-west of England, it will be an
interesting result for the philosophic .
historian of myth and tradition, if it
should be found that, as I would main-
tain, the true country of the traditional
Arthur—the country, that is, richest in
Arthurian localities,—is, not that of his
historical existence, but Southern Scot-
land and the English Border.

Leaving, however, the final decision
of such questions to fuller research into
Celtic philology and history, I would
now proceed, first, to give a general
description of Arthurian Scotland, and
its relation to the Fingalian country.
And the first remark I would make
under this head is, that the Scotish
district of Arthurian localities corre-
sponds, with very singular accuracy, with
two out of the four great geological
divisions of the country. The two first
of these are the Highlands, east and
west of the Glenmore-nan-Albin, the
Great Glen of Albion, through which
is cut the Caledonian Canal. These
northern Highlands are separated from
the rest of the country by the great
line of the Grampians, running from
south-west tonorth-east, from Loch Long,
in Argyleshire, to Girdleness, the south-
ern promontory of the Bay of Aberdeen.
Its central towers are Ben Muich Dhui
(4,300 ft.), and the surrounding Cairn-
gorm Mountains, all averaging upwards
of 4,000 feet. And Ben Nevis (4,400
feet) is an isolated outpost, separated
from the main line by the Muir of
Rannoch, and defending the rear at
the south-west end. It is chiefly, if

not exclusively, on or beyond this line,

ee a ae

Arthurian Scotland. 163

prolonged to the Mull of Cantyre, that
we find the localities of Fingalian tra-
dition.

The two other geological divisions of
Scotland are the Midland Valley (valley,
however, only in a geological sense), and
the Southern Uplands ; the latter sepa-
rated from the former by a line curiously
parallel with that just indicated,running,
likeit, from south-west to north-east, from
Girvan in Ayrshire to Dunbar in Had-
dingtonshire. It is these two southern
divisions that form, with the adjoining
English Border, what I would designate
as Arthurian Scotland. For throughout
the whole of this district, and up to,
but—as far as I remember, and save
as hereafter noted — not beyond the
line of the Grampians, are to be found
localities in rich abundance with Ar-
thurian names or Arthurian traditions
attached to them.

The general scenery of these two
great northern and southern divisions
of the kingdom is strikingly dissimilar ;
yet, in this difference, there is an inter-
esting similarity to the contrasted cha-
racteristics’ of the different but allied
cycles of Celtic tradition and romance,
Fingalian and Arthurian, of which these
northern and southern districts respec-
tively are the seats. Beyond the line
of the Grampians, “a sea of mountains
“rolls away to Cape Wrath in wave
“« after wave of gneiss, schist, quartz-rock,
“ granite, and other crystalline masses.”
And the Fingalian Legends seem full of
the sentiment that the rocks and caverns
resounding with the Atlantic waves ;
that the deep glens and the dark moun-
tain-lochs ; that the fleeing and pur-
suing shadows of the clouds on the
rainbow-arched mountain-sides ; and
that, above all, the intermingling, in
the forests, of the feminine grace and
tenderness of the birch with the stately
grandeur of the pine, —theintermingling
of the bright and joyous music of the
glinting, heather-purpling sunbeams

with the sterner, wilder voices of the

storm-swept hills,—would appear well
fitted to excite in an imaginative and
noble race.

Very different is the scenery of the

southern division, with the broad belt
of lower old red sandstone at the base
of the Grampians, the igneous rocks
and carboniferous strata of the Midland
Valley, and the hard greywacke, shale,
and limestone bands of the Silurian
Uplands. Broad firths, Tay, Forth, and
Clyde ; wide fertile plains, such as that
of Strathmore between the Grampians
and the low seaward range of the Ochils
and the Sidlaws, and abrupt, isolated
crags and hills, form the chief physical
features of the former district: while
the latter presents us with many-foun-
tained, green-rolling, pastoral hills,
breaking down into river-lighted dales,
famous in story and in song. To these
succeed the very similar hills, vales,
and forest-lands of the English Border.
Such, generally described, is the scenery
of Arthurian Scotland. And in its more
cultivated and more peopled, attractive
rather than awe-inspiring character, it
contrasts ne less strongly with Scotland
beyond the Grampians than do the
elaborate and worldly Arthurian ro-
mances, that find in it the fit localities
of their incidents, with the primitive
Fingalian traditions, recalled by the
names of so many @ mountain, cave,
and glen in the northern and wilder
region.

With this general view of the district
we are to traverse, we should now pro-
ceed on our proposed journey through
Arthurian Scotland. But a few words
may first be necessary in defence of the
annexation, by this general name, of a
considerable district of England over
what is now the Border. Note then,
that, if part of the region which, from
its traditional localities, I propose to
distinguish as Arthurian Scotland, be
now England, by far the greater part of
it is still Scotland. Further, those
English counties of Cumberland and
Northumberland, ‘part of which I would
include under this general name, were
not only within the southern limits of
the ancient Caledonia, not yet contracted
to, or which had re-expanded beyond,
the unconquered mountainous country
north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde,
to which the Romans gave this name ;

not only was the Cumbrian Forest of
Inglewood reckoned as but a wood of
the vast Caledonian Forest, the haunt of
Merlin ; and not only was the present
county of Cumberland included as but
a district of that southern Scotland
anciently called Strathclyde ; but it was
not till long after the Norman Conquest
that these northern counties were annexed
to England, and regularly incorporated
with the English monarchy ; while
down to a comparatively late period they
were within the frequent jurisdiction of
the Scotish kings, whose eldest sons
bore the title of Princes of Cumberland.

Let us now begin our circuit of Ar-
thurian Scotland. And for the sake of
the impressiveness of contrast, let us
come down on it from the Braes of Mar,
at the foot of Ben Muich Dhui, the
central dome of that mountain-range
of the Grampians that, marking the
main geological division of the country,
may be said generally to separate Ar-
thurian from Fingalian Scotland. For
north of this line we have only to note
that (1) Orkney, and perhaps also
(2) Caithness, are referred to in the
romances as the birth-countries of Ar-
thurian knights. It is but one long
day’s walk from Braemar, through Glen
Cluny, Glen Beg, and Glen Shee, to
Alyth ; or, but for the shut-up deer-
forest, we might cross from the head of
Glen Calater, down through Glen Isla.
And here we find ourselves at once in
the region of Arthurian story. For in-
numerable legends agree in representing
(3) Barry Hill (Barra, fortified hill), in
the parish of Alyth, in Perthshire, as the
residence or prison of—as the legends
make her out—the infamous Vanora, or
Guinevere, “who appears in the local
“traditions under the more homely
“ name of Queen Wander, and is gene-
“ rally described as a malignant giant-
“ess.” For the king her husband had
lost the day in a great battle with the
Picts and Scots, and she was made
prisoner and taken to the castle on
Barry Hill. This, however, she found
by no means so unpleasant as she ought
to have done. “ Vanora,” says tradi-

164 Arthurian Scotland.

tion, “held an unlawful intercourse
“ with Mordred, the Pictish king ; and
“ Arthur, when he received her again,
“enraged at her infidelity, caused her
“to be torn to pieces by wild horses.”
Her tomb, (4)“Ganore’s Grave,” we have
next to visit. It lies but a few miles
off, near (5) Arthurston. For “she was
“buried at Meigle, and a monument
“erected to perpetuate her infamy.”
And on examining the curious sculp-
tured stones in Meigle churchyard, said
to be the remains of this monument, we
do actually find “two representations of
“wild beasts tearing a human body,
“and one where the body seems tied
“ or close to chariot wheels, which may
“ relate to Vanora, or may have given
“ rise to the tradition.” But the scene
of her last resting-place, when I visited
it, seemed suggestive of some less rude,
some nobler version of her story. It
was the close of autumn. Along the
broad valley of Strathmore, ending
northwards in the Howe of the Mearns,
and sheltered from the sea by the Sid-
law Hills, with their many legends of
Duncan, Macbeth, and Banquo, the
farmyards were closely stacked with the
ingathered corn ; the leaves, whirled by
gentle breezes, were falling through the
sunny air; and beneath the lofty range
of the snow-capped Grampians, along
the whole strath, lay the dying year in
the beauty of an ineffable repose.

From Meigle we may proceed by rail
to Stirling. And here, under the battle-
mented rocks of the castle, and adjoin-
ing the King’s Park, we find a singular
flat-surfaced mound within a series of
inclosing embankments, which is called
the (6) King’s Knot, and would appear to
be of very great antiquity. For in a
sport called “ Knights of the Round
Table,” the institutions of King Arthur
were here of old commemorated. And
also in Stirlingshire and in the vale of
the Forth, and not far from where are
now the Carron Ironworks, is, or rather
was, what should seem to have been
a Roman structure, though testifying to
the currency in this district of Arthurian
tradition in its vulgar name of (7) Ar-
thur’s O’on (Oven).

|
'

“

Arthurian Scotland. 165

Proceeding towards Edinburgh, we
have (8) Arthur’s Lee. (9) The Bass in
the Firth of Forth enters into our list
as the Bassas of the sixth battle of the
Arthur of Nennius.! And the little
river (10) Dunglas, which formed the
southern boundary of Lothian, seems to
be the river, as Nennius says, “ by the
“ Britons called Duglas, in the region
‘“* Linuis,” where Arthur’s second, third,
fourth, and fifth battles were fought.
Overlooking the capital, we have the
famous (11) Arthur’s Seat. (12) Edin-
burgh itself may be enumerated among
Scotish Arthurian localities, if rightly
identified with Cat Bregion, where,
according to Nennius, Arthur fought
his eleventh great battle against the
Saxons. And its (13) Castle is, with-
out doubt, the Pictish Castel Mynedh
Agnedh, the Castrum Puellarum of the
Charters, and the Dolorous Valley and
Castle of Maidens of the Romances.
For instance, Sir Galahad, “‘as he prayed,
“ heard a voice that said thus: ‘Go now,
“thou adventurous knight, unto the
“Castle of Maidens, and there do thou
“away with all the wicked customs.’ ”

By rail again, down Gala Water, we
come on another group of Arthurian
localities. For “six miles to the west
“of that heretofore noble and eminent
“monastery of Meilros,” is (14) “ We-
“dale, in English Wodale, in Latin
“ Vallis Doloris.” Here, at Stowe, was
(15) the church of St. Mary’s, where were
once “ preserved in great veneration the
“fragments of that image of the Holy
“Virgin, Mother of God,” which
Arthur, on his return from Jerusalem,
“bore upon his shoulders, and through
“the power of our Lord Jesus Christ
“and the holy Mary, put the Saxons
“to flight, and pursued them the whole
“day with great slaughter.” And
Melrose itself is situated at the foot
of those famous three-summited (16)
Eildons, which, with their various

1 This, however, and the following identifi-
cations of the places mentioned by Nennius as
the localities of the battles fought by the chief
he calls Arthur, I am only prepared to main-
tain as being generally correct ; that is, as
being somewhere in Arthurian Scotland.

weirdly appurtenants—the Windmill of
Kippielaw, the Lucken Hare, and the
Eildon Tree—mark the domed and vast
subterranean halls in which all the Ar-
thurian chivalry await, in an enchanted
sleep, the bugle-blast of the adventurer,
who will call them at length to a new
life. Then across the winding (17)Tweed,
which must also be included in our list,
wandering up the Leader Water, and
passing the Cowdenknowes of pastoral
song, we come to (18) the Rhymer’s
Tower, on a beautiful haugh, or meadow,
by the waterside. Here, in his castle
of Ercildoune, of which these are the
ruins, lived Thomas the Rhymer,
whom so many traditions connect with
Arthurian romance, in representing him
as the unwilling and too quickly vanish-
ing guide of those adventurous spirits
who have entered the mysterious halls
beneath the Eildons, and attempted to
achieve the re-awakening of Arthur and
his knights, but only to be cast forth
amid the thunders of the fateful
words :—

** Woe to the coward that ever he was born,
Who did not draw the sword before he blew
the horn.”

From Melrose we again set out, and
journey, it may unfortunately be at
railway speed, down the Tweed, past an
almost endless number of places famous
in story, to (19) Berwick. And, though
now fallen into comparative decay and
insignificance, crowning, as it does, the
northern heights at the mouth of the
Tweed, looking eastward on the sea, that
dashes up to high, caverned cliffs, and
commanding westward the vale of the
beautiful river, here flowing between
steep braes, shadowy with trees, or
bright with corn and pasture, Berwick,
but for the dulness now within its walls,
seems still almost as worthy of being
called Joyeuse Garde, as, both from its
real and romance history of siege, con-
quest, and reconquest, it is of being
remembered as Dolorous Garde.

From its still-preserved ramparts I
observed, away to the south, a great
pyramid-like mass by the sea; and on
asking what this was, I was told it was

166

(20) Bamborough Castle. “Ah,” said I
to myself, “the Chatel Orgueilleux.” So
I went by train to the Belford station,
and thence it is but some five miles to
the little model village under the castle
rock, And whatever may, on other
grounds, be said of the expenditure of
the funds vested for certain charitable
purposes in the trustees to whom this
ancient castle, with its valuable estates,
now belongs, an Arthurian antiquary
can hardly but be grateful to them for
enabling him to enter what might easily
be imagined one of the very castles of
which he has been reading. Occupying
the whole extent of a solitary eminence,
it stands among sandy downs close by
the sea, and overlooking a wide plain at
the foot of the Cheviots. Nearly oppo-
site the castle are the Farne Islands ; and
journeying five or six miles over the
sands when the tide is out, and a mile
by boat, one reaches Lindisfarne. Hav-
ing visited the abbey of the holy island
of St. Cuthbert,—like Iona, whence the
saintly Aidan came here as a missionary,
a primitive seat of Christianity, and
where, as I thought, there ought to
have been a tradition of its having been
the retreat of Sir Lancelot after the dis-
covery of his treason, and his final sepa-
ration from the queen,—I regained the
mainland and Beal station in a slow,
jolting cart, chased by the too swiftly
incoming tide, but amusing myself
thinking of the still worse jolting Sir
Lancelot underwent, and the ludicrous
disgrace brought upon him by his
accepting the offer of the dwarf to guide
him to the captive Guinevere, would the
knight but leave his disabled horse and
get into “la charette,” the filthy cart of
the dwarf.

We turn now westward, and just
noting that here, in the northern part of
Northumberland, is the (21) river Glein,
identified with the Gleni, at the mouth
of which, according to Nennius again,
took place “the first battle in which
Arthur was engaged,” we get on to
Hexham ; and from that picturesquely
situated-old town, with its Moot Hall
and Abbey Church on a wooded ridge
overhanging the Tyne, we proceed either

Arthurian Scotland.

to the Haydon Bridge, or the Bardon
Mill station of the Carlisle and New-
castle Railway.

For, six or eight miles to the north
of these stations, and in the neighbour-
hood of Housesteads, the most complete
of the stations on the Roman Wall, is
a little group of Arthurian localities.
The scenery here is very remarkable.
The green but unwooded grazing hills,
wide and wild-looking from their want
of inclosures and the infrequency of
farmhouses, seem like the vast billows
of a north-sweeping tide. Along one of
these wave-lines runs the Roman Wall,
with the stations of its garrison. In
a trough, as it were, of this mighty sea,
and to the north of the wall, were,
till a few years ago removed and
ploughed over, the ruins of the ancient
(22) Castle of Sewing Shields, the
name to which Seuch-shiel (the shieling
or hut by the fosse) has been corrupted.
Beneath it, as under the Eildon, Arthur
and all his court are said to lie in an
enchanted sleep. And here, also, tra-
dition avers, that the passage to these
subterranean halls having, once on a time,
been found, but the wrong choice having
been made in the attempt to achieve the
adventure, and call the chivalry of the
Table Rounde to life again, the unfortu-
nate adventurer was cast forth with these
ominous words ringing in his ears :—

*O woe betide that evil day
On which this luckless wight was born,
Who drew the sword, the r cut,
But never blew the bugle-horn ;”

the very opposite mistake, it will be
observed, of which the equally luckless
Eildon adventurer was guilty.

The northern face df these successive
billows, if I may so call them, pre-
sent here fine precipitous crags,—whin-
stone and sandstone strata cropping out.
These are called respectively Sewing
Shields Crags, (23) the King’s, and (24)
the Queen’s Crags. Along the crest of
the first of these the Roman Wall is
carried. The others take their name
from having been the scene of a little
domestic quarrel, or tiff, between King
Arthur and Queen Guinevere. To settle

Arthurian Scotland,

the matter, the king, sitting on a rock
called (25) Arthur’s Chair, threw at the
queen an immense boulder, which, fall-
ing somewhat short of its aim, is still
to be seen on this side of the Queen’s
Crags. On the horizon of the im-
mense sheepfarm of Sewing Shields,
and beyond an outlying shepherd’s hut,
very appropriately named Coldknuckles,
is a great stone called (26) Cumming’s
Cross, to which there is attached another
rude Arthurian tradition. For here,
they say that King Arthur’s sons at-
tacked and murdered a northern chief-
tain who had been visiting their father
at what Sir Walter Scott seems to refer
to, in “ Harold the Dauntless,” as the
Castle of Seven Shields, and who was
going home with too substantial proofs,
as they thought, of the king’s generosity.
And about a mile along the Wall from
Sewing Shields is a gate called (27) the
King’s Wicket, which would seem to
refer to Arthur again.

Having reached these localities from
the Haydon Bridge station, we may find
it convenient, as certainly for the sake
of variety it will be pleasanter, to come
down again on the railway at the Bardon
Mill station. Thence we proceed to
(28) Carlisle, Caer-luel, the Cardueil of
romance, even still more famous than
the hardly yet identified Camelot, as
the favourite residence of King Arthur.
And with reason. For beautifully does
the castle-and-cathedral-crowned emi-
nence, swept round by the Eden, the
Peteril, and the Caldew, rise from the
wide plain that stretches from the Border
Hlills down to and along the Solway
Firth. But a visit to the populous
modern manufacturing quarter, in the
evening, when the hands are loose (how
meaningful is the phrase !), may profit-
ably disturb antiquarian memories and
romantic associations.

From Carlisle our Arthurian pilgrim-
age takes us southward again through
the (29) Inglewood Forest of romance.
Within its circuit are (30) Plumpton
Park, (31) Hutton Hall, and (32) Hatton
Castle, which Sir Frederick Madden iden-
tifies with places of similar names in the
romances of Sir Gawayne, And from

167

the Southwaite station, I had a walk of
something more than two miles, through
a beautifully wooded lane, its waysides
luxuriant with wild flowers, to the village
of Upper Hesket. At the “ White Ox”
I had the good fortune to encounter an
intelligent old man, who, taking me to
the back of the farmyard, pointed out,
down in the hollow, what I was in
search of, the famous (33) Tarn Wahe-
thelyne of ballad and romance. But
Tarn Wadling, as it has been called in
later times, has been for the last ten
years a wide meadow grazed by hundreds
of sheep. Of the draining of it, the
old man, the innkeeper as it turned out,
who had come from Yorkshire, but been
here for the last fifty years, had a great
deal to say ; among the rest, what fun it
was to see the swine that belonged to a
cottager at the far end of the tarn, get
tired of the dead carp that were cast on
the land, and wade in to fish for the
**quick uns.” But of the story of the
Grim Baron whom King Arthur chanced
to meet here, whose

« _-strokes were nothing sweet,”

and who refused all other ransom than
that the king should, within a year and
a day, bring him word “‘ what thing it
is that women most desire ;” and of the
Foul Ladye who gave, at length, for
the courteous Sir Gawayne’s sake, the
true answer, and who, on her marriage,
was so transformed that

“The queen sayd, and her ladyes alle,
She is the fayrest nowe in this halle ;”

of how
“ This ferly byfelle fulle sothely to fayne

In Iggilwode Foreste at the Tarn-wathe-

layne ;” —

of all this, neither my old friend nor his
dame had ever heard till I told them
the tale. And all he knew about King
Arthur was, that—

“ When as King Arthur ruled this land
He ruled it like a swine ;

He bought three pecks of barleymeal
To make a pudding fine.

“ His pudding it was nodden well, +
And stuffed right full of plums ;
And lumps of suet he put in
As big as my two thumbs : "—

ee

‘
t
.
f
‘
:
'
,
#
’

168

a tradition of the rule of the “ Flos
Regum” hitherto, I believe, unnoticed.

Crossing the south end of the tarn,
or rather meadow, and passing through
a fir wood, [ ascended Blaze Fell, and
from the quarry on its summit had a
fine view over the undulating, mountain-
bounded, and still finely-wooded ancient
Forest of Inglewood. Below me was the
tarn; to the west of it, the ridge of
Upper Hesket ; to the east, an eminence
with the site, though no more the ruins,
of the (34) Castle Hewin of romance,
the stronghold of the Grim Baron. And
behind this eminence the Eden flows
past still another locality which recalls
his fame, and with it, the legend of the
marriage of Sir Gawayne—(35) Baron-
wood.

Returning to the Southwaite station,
we proceed next to (36) Penrith, also, as
it should seem, to be included in our
Arthurian list. Thence, crossing the
narrow but picturesque old bridge of
the Eamont, which, flowing from Ulles-
water, here separates the counties of
Westmoreland and Cumberland, we find,
closely adjoining the fine Celtic monu-
ment of Mayborough, another such set
of circular embankments round a flat-
surfaced central mound, as we found,
but on a larger scale, under the battle-
ments of Stirling Castle. But what was
there called the King’s Knot is here
named (37) Arthur’s Round Table. And
connected with a cave in the demesne of
(38) Brougham Castle in this neighbour-
hood, we still find a tradition of a giant
killed by the most famous knight of the
Table Rounde, Sir Lancelot du Lac.

Here we have come to the southern
limit of what I venture to designate
Arthurian Scotland. And now, turning
northwards, I determined, if possible, to
verify Sir F. Madden’s conjecture, that
the Grene Chapel spoken of in the Scot-
ish romance of “Syr Gawayne and the
Grene Knight” (by “ Huchowne of the
Awle Ryale”?) is the same with the (39)
“¢ Chapel of the Grune,’ which in the
** older maps of Cumberland is marked as
“ existing on the point of land on the
“ western coast running into the estuary
“of the Wampool, not far from Skin-

Arthurian Scotland.

“burness.” So, returning to Carlisle, I
went down to Silloth, which seems to
be getting a favourite sea-bathing and
health-recruiting place. Thence | wan-
dered up the Solway beach to the ex-
treme point of Skinburness. And this
much at least, by way of verification of
Sir F. Madden’s conjecture, I may say,
that there is near this a beautifully em-
bayed shore, covered with the brightest
green down to the very water’s edge,
from which, if indeed the site of the
Grene Chapel, it might well have
taken its name; and further, that (40)
Wolsty, or Vulstey Castle, so long asso-
ciated with the necromantic fame of the
wizard Michael Scott, and which once
stood in the fair wide plain which rises
gradually to the foot of Skiddaw, might,
from its site with reference to this
bright green shore, the seaward border
of the plain, well be that in which Sir
Gawayne took up his abode, and which
is stated to have been but two miles
distant from the Chapel, the object of
his quest. Away, too, from here, and
over the sea, is the (41) Castle of the
King of Man—

** He lett him see a castle faire,
Such a one he never saw yare,
Noe where in noe countrie.
The Turke said to Syr Gawaine,
* Yonder dwells the King of Man,
A heathen soldan is hee.’ ”

A wretch of whom we are further told
that he

‘* angered more at the spiritualty,
In England nor at the temporaltie,
They goe so in their array.
And I purpose in full great ire,
To brenn their clergy in a fire
And punish them to my pay.”

A shower falling with the turn of the
tide, I took shelter in a little cottage,
where I found a pretty young woman
with her firstborn in her arms. Crow-
ing, instead of crying at sight of the
stranger, I remarked what a fine big
boy he was; and his proud mother,
turning her face modestly a little away,
replied: “ And yet they say a fore-
son is ordinarily sma.” Looking from
the cottage-door, she pointed out to me

—

Arthurian Scotland. 169

where, on the opposite shore of the
gleaming water, Annan might just be
distinguished, and where, up the estuary
of the Nith, lay Dumfries; and I was
delighted with the beautiful lake-like
Firth, the charm of which, I imagined,
must be mainly owing to the variety of
its coast-outlines, and the undefined,
mysterious recesses of its bays and
estuaries ; though there were also,
indeed, the fine distant forms of the
Scotish and English mountains, and the
lights and shades of a bright though
beclouded summer's day.

Returning once more to Carlisle, it
occurred to me that (42) Arthuret,
which Hutchinson supposes to be a cor-
ruption of Arthur’s Head, might rather
have been originally Ardderyd, the scene
of that final battle, “in campo inter
Lidel et Carvanolow situato,” the ter-
rible mutual slaughter of which drove
Merlin mad. Leaving, therefore, by
train, for lLongdown, but twenty
minutes distant, 1 walked to the mound
by Arthuret Church, some two miles
off. And standing there looking west,
and thinking of where behind me
must lie (43) the Liddel and (44) Carva-
nolow, I could not doubt the correctness
of my conjecture. A grander battle-plain
could hardly be imagined, could the
enemy be manceuvred to attack one in
a position of which that eminence
should be the centre. In the distance,
behind and around, low hills, except
where they rise to a greater height on
the Scotish border; in front the Esk,
flowing across the plain to fall into the
Solway Firth, after having been joined
by the Line; and bounding the plain,
the sea, into which, should the enemy
have been unsuccessful in their attack,
the victors, fording the river, might
drive them in irreparable rout.

But some three months after this
identification of Arthuret with Ardde-
ryd, and after this paper had been
written, though in a somewhat less
expanded form, and offered for publica-
tion, I found that Mr. Skene had not
only also made this discovery, but had
already communicated it to the Society
of the Antiquaries of Scotland, though

his paper was not yet published. It was
something of a disappointment to be
anticipated, but much more of a pleasure
to be confirmed in my views by so
learned an antiquary. To Mr. Skene’s
essay, therefore, I must refer those who
may be further interested in the matter,
and I shall here only add that, not-
withstanding the apparent connexion
of the name with Arthur, Arthuret is
placed in this list of Arthurian localities
merely because of the presence of the
historical Merlin at this great battle
between Paganism and Christianity—
between Gwenddolow (whose name sur-
vives in Carwhinelow, Carvanolow, Caer-
wenddolew, the city of Gwenddolew)
on the one side and Rydderch on the
other.

Past great farms, or rather agricul-
tural manufactories, with their steam-
engines and chimney-stalks, I wandered
over the old battle-plain down to and
by a primitive wooden bridge mounted
on stilts, across the Line. Then getting
on the turnpike road to Glasgow, I
crossed the Esk by an iron bridge, and,
a mile or so on the south side of the
Border, I turned towards the sea, but
some five minutes distant now. The
scene I beheld as I went down to the
tide, “ washing among the reeds,” struck
me as of a weird and magical beauty.
Behind, in the middle of the great
plain, was still clearly visible the mound
of Arthuret ; before me, in the far dis-
tance, to the right was the Scotish
Criffel, and to the left the English
Skiddaw ; between these, in the sheen
of the setting sun, and stretching away
amid points of land to the west, so that,
whether it was landlocked as a lake, or
boundless as a sea, one could not tell,
was (45) the Solway. “Here,” I
thought, “well may one feign that here,
“even at such a sunset hour as this,
“ after the last fatal battle, on the plain
“ above, Excalibur was thrown into the
“sea; that here it was caught by the
“ fairy hand, and borne aloft, symbol of
*‘ the hope and ultimate triumph of the
* genius of the Celtic races ; and there,
“ in the infinite Beyond, is Avalon.”

We find our next group of Scotish

ee ge ee

170

Arthurian localities in what are now the
counties of Kirkcudbright, Wigton, Ayr,
Renfrew, and Dumbarton ; for in this
district, or closely adjoining it, we shall
find the various ancient territories

“ Of (46) Kunynge, of (47) Carryke, of (48)
Conynghame, of (49) Kyle,
' Of (50) Lomonde, of (51) Lenay, of (52)
Lowthayne hillis.”
Here also we shall probably be able to
identify
“ Alle the landes and the lythes, from (53)
Lowyke to (54) Layre,
(55) The Lebynge, (56) the Lewpynge, (57)
the Leveastre Ile,” ,
and others which, though undoubtedly
in Scotland, are, through the misspelling
probably of English copyists of the
MSS., still unidentified by the Scotish
antiquaries, to whom Sir F. Madden,
nearly thirty years ago now, recom-
mended the task. But the chief Ar-
thurian interest of this district is in the
greater part of it being within the
limits of the ancient (58) Galloway, the
patrimony of Sir Gawayne, son of Lot,
King of (59) Lothian, and hence the
probable birthland of so many knights,
of whom the only description is but
such as this: “ Al they were of Scot-
“land, outher of Sir Gawayne’s kyne,
“outher well-willers to his bretheren.”
From the Broughton station of the
railway that connects Peebles with the
western main line through England
and Scotland, I set out on foot for
Merlin’s Grave at (60) Drummelzier.
Crossing to the south bank of the
‘Tweed, and reaching the ancient parish
church and kirktown, or hamlet, by the
Pansay] (i.e. Willow) Burn, I was for-
tunate in making the acquaintance of
the intelligent shoemaker of the place.
From his account, there seemed to be
some doubt as to which of two localities
here had the best traditional right to be
called the grave of Merlin. ‘That now
certainly the most picturesque, and
maintained by the late Dr. Somerville,
the minister of the parish, to be the true
site of the tomb, is by an ancient thorn-
tree, of which there is now a younger
thriving offshoot (fair augury of a renewal

Arthurian Scotland.

of Merlin’s fame) by the burnside, a
little above its junction with the Tweed,
and at the foot of the moraine on which
stand the kirk and manse. But it
seems that, at the corner of what is now
a corn-field, there used to be a cairn
called Merlin’s Grave; and though the
Pansayl does not at present meet the
Tweed at this spot, yet it did so fora
time, in consequence of a great spaet or
overflow of the river, when the Scotish
James VI. became King of England ;
and so the prophecy was fulfilled that

- 7 Tweed and Pansayl meet at Merlin’s
rave,
Scotland and England one king shall have.”

For me, not only the weight of autho-
rity, but the perennial thorn-tree decides
the matter. But whichever be the
better tradition as to the place where
Viviana, that he might be with her
henceforth for evermore, imprisoned
Merlin in an invisible tomb, the sur-
rounding scenery is still the same. And
the here narrow valley of the Tweed,
with its inclosing hills, though by no
means, in its present disafforested state,
of an impressive beauty or grandeur,
cannot be looked on with indifference
by any one who knows how, as M. de la
Villemarqué writes :—

“La plus ancienne tradition romanesque
a fait agir Merlin, comment elle a personnifié,
et idéalisé en lui le dévouement passioné d
tout ce que la grande époque chevaleresque
jugeait digne de son respect, je veux dire la
religion, la patrie, la royauté, l'amour, l’amour
pur, discret, délicat, la solitude & deux éter-
nellement enchantée.”

And well may the French savant, in his
history of the bard, his works, and in-
fluence, refuse to follow him,—

‘* A travers les fantaisies des continuatenrs
et des imitateurs de son noble panégyriste,
Robert de Borron. L’esprit grivois et gogue-
nard y remplace progressivement |’esprit moral
et grave passé, de la tradition bretonne dans
lceuvre frangaise primitive. Le sentiment est
chassé trop souvent par la rire; ce qui est
élévé, par ce qui est plat; le sérieux par
Yamusant. A la fin Merlin sera plus ou moins
moulé sur le type scholastique et vulgaire du
savant devenu fou d’orgueil, du sage Salomon
que séduisent les femmes étrangéres, du poéte

ucréce que la perfide Lucile empoisonne, du

~ Be ee

OO NE ee eee

Arthurian Scotland. 171

vieillard de la comédie, victime de sa sotte
——. Et la verve de Rabelais pas plus que

‘art de Tennyson ne parviendront compléte-
ment & vaincre la pitié qu’inspirera cette figure
ombrante.”

In the legends and romances of Merlin
mention is ever made of a fountain by
which he used to meet his love, and
around which he caused to spring up the
enchanted Garden of Joy. Of no well
or fountain, however, could I hear, either
with the name or a tradition of Merlin
attached to it. But as we know that it
was in the forests of Tweeddale that the
Caledonian Merlin wandered, constantly
escaping from the conventional falsities
and restraints of the court, I could not
leave this fair region without visiting
that land of fountains and springs of
water, that central mountain-district of
the south of Scotland, where at no great
distance apart are the sources of the east-
ward-flowing Tweed, the westward-run-
ning Clyde, and the southward- falling
Annan. And having wandered about
here for several days, I thought at last
that I might, perhaps, best identify the
(61) Sources of the Clyde with the
fountain of the Caledonian Merlin, from
the description of it in the Scotish ()
“ Vita Merlini” of the thirteenth
century :—

** Fons erat in summo cujusdam vertice montis,
Undique precinctus corulis densisque fru-

tectis
Illic Merlinus consederat ; ; inde per omnes
Spectabat silvas, cursusque jocosque ferarum.”

And if the Garden of Joy were to be
sought in the Caledonian Forest rather
than in the Bois de Broceliand, it might
well, I thought, be imagined to have
been bounded by the Tweed on the
north ; the Clyde and Annan on the
west ; Moffat Water, the Loch of the
Lowes, St. Mary’s Loch, and Yarrow
Water on the south ; and Ettrick Water
on the east. For the scenery here is, I
think, the most beautiful and varied in
all Tweeddale ; and has from of old in-
spired many a poet’s song. Over the
steep green sides of the pastoral dales,
sweep the swift shadows of the clouds.
Fountains and streams abound. Of the
many waterfalls, one, some 200 feet high,

is perhaps the finest in Scotland. Deep
ravines there are, too, and shadowy
mountain nooks. And all the Garden
wants—for it still has its flowers—are
the trees which once overhung what,
with them, might be its fairy lakes.
Here, then, we may feign that Viviana
listened to the choral songs that the
Enchanter caused to arise around them,
disregarding in her delight the ominous
refrain :—

** Lamour arrive en chantant,
Et s’en retourne en pleurant.”

But if there is no fountain bearing
the name of Merlin in his ancient forest,
there is more than one dedicated to
that St. Kentigern or St. Mungo who,
according to the monastic legend, con-
verted the heathen bard, the Merlin
whom M. de la Villemarqué distinguishes
as personnage réel, from the mythologi-
cal, legendary, poetical, and romanesque
Merlins. Of these wells or fountains,
(62 and 63) one is near Peebles; another,
better known perhaps, in the crypt of the
Cathedral of Glasgow ; of which city St.
Mungo was, it is said, the founder, about
A.D. 560.

And now, approaching the south-
west end of the Grampian chain, we near
the northern frontier of Arthurian Scot-
land, and the end of our circuit. We
have, imleed, but two more localities to
note ; and the first of these is (64)
Dumbarton, the traditional birthplace of
Mordred. It was towards sunset that I
climbed the castle rock, where the sword
of Wallace is still preserved, and beheld
a scene of rarely equalled beauty: broad
river, wealthy plains, and grand moun-
tains ; the long extent of Ben Lomond,
clear and well defined ; and all suffused
with the red sunset-glow that augured
a fair morrow for ascending the rugged
peak of (65) Ben Arthur.

But the verification of the theory here
advanced as to the chief country of
Arthurian tradition is by no means to
be found merely in what would, from
the above, appear to be the fact that the
number of localities with Arthurian

172 Arthurian Scotland.

names or traditions attached to them
exceed, in the district I have indicated,
the number of such localities in any
other district of similar’ extent. And
I would now draw attention to the
completeness and unity of these several
localities in reference to the incidents
of Arthurian romance, as a further aud
very important verification of this theory
as to the country in which the Arthurian
traditions have their chief “ local habi-
tation.”

To see, however, the unity and com-
pleteness of those traditional localities,
we must first have reduced to some
order the Arthurian legends and
romantic tales themselves. They will
be found, I think, very distinctly divi-
sible into six classes. As either the
first, or last class of these legends, we
may consider those which relate to the
enchanted sleep and resurrection of the
Arthurian chivalry. Then we have the
five classes of adventures to which, bor-
rowing the title of the lost work of the
early Scotish poet, ‘“ Huchowne of the
Awle Ryale,” we may give the general
name of “The Great Geste of Arthur.”
The first class of these,—including the
various stories of the forest life of
Merlin and the young Arthur ; the loves
of both master and pupil; the grand
political dénowement of the election of
Arthur as king; his marriage ; the vic-
tory of the national cause, of which he
is the representative ; and the establish-
ment of the Table Rounde,—we may
conveniently distinguish under the title
of “ The Romance of the Forest ; or, the
Adventures of Arthur.” Then we find in
these legends and tales a great number
of scenes, incidents, and characters which
are of all the various kinds into which
German writers on esthetics aave clas-
sified Das Komische, the Comic. Of
this part of the “ Great Geste,” at once
the most prominent and heroic character
is, at least in the earlier romances, that
noble Don Giovanni, the gay Knight of
Galloway, the courteous Sir Gawayne ;
and its most important incidents are
those which bring “the awntyres of
Arthure at the Tern Wathelyne” to a
happy conclusion in the marriage of Sir

Gawayne, and the retransformation of
the Foul Ladye and theGrim Baron. This
class, therefore, of Arthurian stories may
be generalized and distinguished as the
“ Comedy of the Table Rounde ; or, the
Marriage of Sir Gawayne.” Next in
order may come that great class of ad-
ventures connected with ‘ thachyeuyng
of the Sane Greal,” and contained in
those romances which form a variously-
told epic, in which the chivalrous and
religious spirit of the Crusades had its
most popular cotemporary poetic ex-
pression. This third part of the stories
vf the “Great Geste of Arthur” may,
then, be distinguished as the “ History
of the Quest of the Holy Grail ; or, the
Wars of Sir Perceval.” For he is ever
the chief of the knights who achieve
the Quest. And under this class may
be also conveniently included those
earlier legends of the foreign victories
of Arthur of which the adventures of
the Quest afterwards took the place,
and which, as Professor Pearson says,
“seem traceable to the conquests
“of the Emperor Maximus, who, him-
“self of British descent, raised his
“ standard in Britain in a.p. 382, and
“by the defeat and death of Gratian
** was left undisputed master of Britain,
“ Gaul, Spain, and Italy, the western
“half of the Reman Empire.” Then;
as the fourth part of the ‘‘ Great Geste,”
we have the tragic stories of the dis-
covery of the long unfaithfulness of the
wife and of the friend, and the news of
the treason of the bastard son; the
death of the noble and beloved Sir
Gawayne, the wound given him by Sir
Lancelot, fatally re-opened in the first
battle against the revolted Mordred ;
the still more tragic scene of the love-
worn end of Merlin, and of the pro-
phecies from his mystic Tomb ; the last
parting, and soon thereafter the deaths
of Guinevere and of

**The truest lover of a synfull man that
ever loved woman; the kyndest man that ever
stroke with sword; the goodlyest persone
that ever came among prees of knyghtes ; the
mekest man and the gentylest that euer ete in
halle amonge ladyes ; and the sternest knyghte
to his wortall foo that euer put spere in the
reyst ;”

Arthurian Scotland.

and, finally, the terrible mutual slaughter
of the battle by the Western Sea, “ with
“the dolourous deth and departyng out
“of this worlde of them al.” But not
thus ends this wondrous cycle of romance.
Succeeding those which may be distin-
guished as belonging to “ The Tragedy of
the Morte d’Arthur ; or, the Revolt of
Mordred,” we find a class of tales which
give to the contemplation of the varied
tragic story of the “ Great Geste” a high
artistic repose and satisfaction. Such
are the tales of the sore- wounded
Arthur being borne away over the
waves by the Ladies of Avalon to their
blessed Island in the West. And this
class may be generally designated “ The
Vision of Avalon; or, the Departing
into Light.”

Now what I would here point out is,
that for the legends and romantic tales
of all these six different classes are not
only to be found local habitations in
Arthurian Scotland, but that these
Scotish localities are all in the most
natural relation to each other; in just
such relation, indeed, as, had the ‘“* Great
Geste” of Arthur been actually played
out in Arthurian Scotland, instead of
being merely a cycle of fictitious ad-
ventures, the localities of its incidents
would most probably have borne to each
other.

For observe, first, that of all the places
with traditions of the enchanted sleep
of Arthur and his knights attached to
them, there seem to be none that can,
either in scenic or traditional import-
ance, vie with those Eildon Hills which
form the fit centre of Arthurian Scot-
land. As the appropriate and romantic
scene of the first part of the “Great
Geste,” we have the Caledonian Forest,
with its Merlin-haunted fountains ;
Dumbarton, the birthplace of Mordred,
—the spot, therefore, where we first get
hold of that thread which forms the
clue by which we may be guided to see
ihe dramatic unity of the vast labyrinth
of these tales ; and Cardueil, or Carlisle,
where the kinged and victorious Arthur
establishes his Table Rounde. Then,
as the fit scene of the Comedy, we have
Joyeuse Garde, the Castle of Seven

173

Shields, Inglewood Forest, Castle Hewin,
the Tarn Wahethelyne, the Green Chapel,
and the other Cumbrian localities above-
noted. The scenes of the Quest of the
Holy Grail, as of the continental con-
quests of Arthur, forming the third part
of the “ Great Geste,” are, of course, be-
yond the limits of Arthurian Scotland,
as well as of Arthurian Brittany, or
Arthurian Wales. For where these
scenes are not Jaid in a wholly un-
identifiable region corresponding to their
supernatural character, they are gene-
rally in the sacred East, where is “ the
citie of Criste oure the salt flude.” But
with the fourth part of the “ Great
Geste” we may again return to Scotland,
and find fit traditional localities for the
tragic incidents of the Morte d’Arthur
in the Chatel Orgueilleux ; Joyeuse
Garde become again Dolorous Garde ;
Wedale, or the Vale of Woe ; the Tomb,
and perennial Thorn of Merlin, where
the Stream of Willows joins the Tweed
in the midst of his beloved Caledonian
Forest ; the solitary northern Grave of
Guinevere ; and the sunset battle-plain
of Ardderyd. Finally, over the Solway,
as the Great Western Lake adjoining
the last fatal battle-field, may fitly rise
for us the magic scenes of the Vision of
Avalon.

I would now, in conclusion, make one
or two general remarks on the theory
above set forth. And first, it seems
important to observe that, even if the
evidence adduced in the two foregoing
sections should not be sufficiently con-
vincing at once to gain general assent
to considering Scotland as the chief
country of Arthurian tradition ; yet it
will hardly be disputed that in Scotland
alone are to be found localities apper-
taining to both the great, and as I hope
to show, allied cycles of Celtic poesy,
the Fingalian and Arthurian. Like the
shells that distinguish different but
allied strata, are these localities to the
two great formations of Celtic tradition.

One principal reason of this I take
to be that these two cycles form the
distinctive poesies of the two great
divisions of the Celtic race, the Gaelic

aaa

174

and Cymric; and that in Scotland
alone the two great families of the Gael
and the Cymri have come first into
antagonism, and then into peaceful
union.

Remark further, how curiously it
would, from the above theory, appear
that the vast secular changes of geology
are connected with and determine such
phenomena of a day as human antiqui-
ties. Through millions of years worked
the slow forces of which the outcome
were the present geological divisions of
Scotland ; and these, at length, deter-
mined the respective seats of two fami-
lies of a race of men, and the relations
of the localities of their distinctive tra-
ditions.

And yet another concluding remark
I may, perhaps, be permitted. It is
not merely to the antiquarian, I venture
to think, that this bringing together of
Arthurian localities, and hence fixing
the chief country of Arthurian tradition,
may be of interest. For the new con-
ceptions of the world, and of human
history and destiny, that Science is
forcing upon us, require a New Poesy
for their synthetic expression: a New

Arthurian Scotland.

Poesy, to show that life, so far from
being stripped by the discoveries of
Science of all that makes it, to the
nobler sort, worth having, is, on the
contrary, by the progress of scientific
knowledge, invested with a new beauty,
a@ more tragic grandeur, and inspired
with a deeper sense of the environing
Infinite. New conceptions require new
forms for their poetic expression. And
as the Italian literature of the Renais-
sance was a mine of poetic forms
for our earlier poets; or as, to take a
more appropriate example, the old Greek
legends, made an Iliad and an Odyssey
of by Homer, furnished the poets of the
great age of Greece with the forms of
their immortal dramas ; so the old Celtic
legends, as they have been prepared
for us by the poetic romancers of the
Middle Ages, will, I think, be found
to present the most varied and easily
adaptable material for the poets who
will dare unreservedly to accept Science.

It is thus, as offering classic localities
for a New Poesy, that I would seek to
interest others than antiquaries only in
Arthurian Scotland.